‘Forced to sign blank paper’: Complainant in Bengal train tragedy

The 23-year-old woman passenger of Kanchanjunga Express, based on whose complaint the Government Railway Police (GRP) had registered an FIR against the driver and assistant driver of a goods train which collided into the passenger train, leaving 10 people dead and 41 injured, said on Wednesday that she was asked to sign on a blank paper when she was undergoing treatment at New Jalpaiguri Railway hospital in Siliguri, and did not name either of the two men in her statement to railway officials.

On Monday, the goods train that was plying between Assam and Odisha, careened into the back of the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express near New Jalpaiguri, causing four compartments of the passenger train – two parcel vans, a guard coach and one general compartment – to suffer damage and veer off the tracks. Preliminary investigations by the Railways into the accident said that the automatic signal system had malfunctioned, and drivers along the route were directed to travel at a reduced speed of 10 kilometres per hour. The goods train, however, was traveling much faster on the same track, and careened into the back of the passenger train.

The FIR, registered by the New Jalpaiguri GRP, which HT has accessed, is based on a complaint by Chaitali Majumdar, originally a resident of Siliguri, and said she called the police station and submitted a written complaint. In the complaint, she said that at around 8:30am, there was a jerk in compartment S6 – in which she was traveling – which resulted in a baby falling off the lap of a passenger, and Majumdar also being injured. The FIR said that when she alighted from the train, she found that a goods train had collided into the Kanchanjunga Express from behind. “The accident has happened due to rash and negligent conduct from the end of the loco pilot and co-loco pilot of the goods train,” the complaint said.

Based on this, Anil Kumar, the driver of the goods train, and assistant driver Manu Kumar, were charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder, in the FIR filed on June 17. Anil Kumar was killed in the accident while Manu Kumar was injured, and is currently being treated in a nursing home in Siliguri.

But Majumdar told media persons on Wednesday that she was in no position to file a complaint on June 17, was not even aware that an FIR was being registered based on her statement to reported railway personnel, and she had mentioned no role of the two drivers. “I was not in a position to lodge any complaint. I don’t even know them. Why should I lodge a complaint against them? I don’t know anything and was in the hospital,” Majumdar, who was discharged on Tuesday afternoon, said.

A software engineer who works in Kolkata’s New Town, Majumdar said that railway officials approached her at around 8:30 pm on Monday and recorded her statements on camera. “They were not in uniform but I could make out they were railway officials from their conversation. They wanted to know what had happened exactly. As I narrated my experience, they recorded my statements on camera. They gave me a blank paper in which my name and address were mentioned. I was asked to sign on it. I did and put the date. They then went away. I was not even informed that an FIR has been registered on the basis of my statement,” she said. She added that two hours later, two police personnel came and made enquiries with her.

Railway police officials did not comment on Majumdar’s allegations. S Selvamurugan, superintendent of the railway police in Siliguri said, “We have received a written complaint and have started a case.”

Goutam Deb, Siliguri mayor and senior TMC leader who visited Majumdar at her home, however, hit out at the Railways and said, “She is being unnecessarily dragged into controversy by the Railways to hide their own failures.”