New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday filed a chargesheet against three arrested Railways officials over alleged culpable homicide not amounting to murder and destruction of evidence in connection with the Balasore train accident case on June 2, news agency PTI reported. The probe agency had arrested senior section engineer (Signals) Arun Kumar Mahanta, section engineer Amir Khand and technician Pappu Kumar, posted in Odisha’s Balasore on July 7 in connection with the train accident.
In the chargesheet filed before Special CBI court in Bhubaneshwar, the agency charged the accused under IPC Section 304 part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), Section 34 read with 201 (common cause read with destruction of evidence) and 153 of the Railways Act, according to PTI.
The central agency said that during the probe into the matter, it was found that the repair work at level crossing 94, near Bahanaga Bazar station, was carried out under the supervision of senior section engineer Mahanta, PTI reported.
As per CBI, Mahanta’s duty was to ensure that the testing, overhauling and carrying out the alterations to the existing signal and interlocking installations were done in accordance with the approved plan and instructions which he did not follow.
It is to be noted that the accident took place on June 2 when the Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary freight train at Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore. Some of its derailed coaches fell onto the adjacent tracks and collided with the oncoming Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express.
The triple-train accident left 296 people dead and over 1,200 injured.
Earlier this month, as many as 29 bodies of the victims recovered from the accident site were yet to be identified, PTI reported.
“29 bodies remain and as the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CSFL) have put the last lot of samples for matching. We are still hopeful that we’ll get some positive reports within this week,” Dillip Kumar Parida, superintendent of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar told PTI.