Two suspended for death of railway pointsman during shunting
ECR suspended two employees after a pointsman was killed during a train engine detachment. An investigation and compensation for the victim's family are underway.
The Sonepur division of East Central Railway (ECR) has suspended two employees on the charges of dereliction of duties during detachment of the engine from 15204 Lucknow-Barauni Express train leading to death of a pointsman Arun Kumar on Saturday, an ECR official said on Tuesday.
The tragic death of Kumar had sent shock waves all across country as images of him being sandwiched between two locomotives had gone viral.
The pointsman Mohammad Suleman and loco shunter Rakesh Roshan were put under suspension and a departmental proceedings has been initiated against them.
Suleman was responsible for wrongfully giving a signal to the loco shunter.
The victim, Arun Kumar (35), a resident of Dalsinghsarai in Samastipur district was preparing the couplings of the parcel van to attach it to the shunting engine. However, before the task could be completed, the shunting engine loco pilot moved backwards due to which Arun got trapped between the engine and the parcel coach.
Later, ECR GM Chhatrasal Singh ordered an investigation into the incident in which Samastipur DRM Vivek Bhusan Sood constituted a committee and sought a detailed report.
“The preliminary report found that the train arrived at 8.10 am on platform number-5. The loco shunter Rakesh Roshan took the charge of the engine at 8.12 am and reached the fuelling point at around 8.15,” said an official.
Pointsman Mohammad Suleman gave a buffer signal (buffer coupler connects the engine with a coach) around 8.27 am and then giving hands signal to go ahead. At around 8.29 am, Suleman gave signal to reverse the engine and subsequently he ran away back side and signal to onward.
The report further stated that at around 10.15 am the engine was detached from the bogie while Arun’s body moved from the track around 11.10 am and sent for postmortem at around 12.15 pm.
The Sonepur railway provided an ex-gratia of ₹44.52 lakh to the victim’s mother Kiran Devi and gave assurance for a job to the brother of the deceased.
However, ECR employees association demanded a fair probe into the incident. “The time of the detachment a shunting master should be present on the spot and he will responsible for supervising the entire process,” said Ghyanshyam Paswan, zonal vice president.