ER relaxes norms,showing ticket not essential for compensation

Most of the dead or the injured were from the Vananchal Express general compartment. According to those who were in the compartment,there were more than 100 passengers in it and many were from Bihar and Jharkhand.

“The claimants of the dead or the relatives of the injured are being sent to the civil administration,which is the police,for an inquiry. If the inquiry proves the person is a genuine claimant,producing a ticklet will not be neccessary,” said Eastern Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Samir Goswami.

Goswami added that 43 bodies have been identified so far and 20 have been kept at Barddhaman Medical College for identification.

Mohammad Idris,50,who was going from Bhagalpur to Dhanbad,said the general compartment was very crowded that night. “There were five people in my seat when the accident took place. I had to pull myself out from the heap of the injured,” he said while undergoing treatment at the Suri State General Hospital.

The train was so crowded that some family members were travelling in different compartments.

Ram Balak Yadav was travelling in one general compartment while his daughter Lucy Kumari was in another. They were united only at the Suri Sadar Hospital nearly 12 hours after the tragedy.

Vananchal Express passes through three states — West Bengal,Bihar and Jharkhand. The train had left Bhagalpur at 5 pm on Sunday and was running nearly five hours late. It was supposed to reach Ranchi,Jharkhand,on Monday morning.

The maximum injuries and casualties occured in the last general compartment of the Vananchal Express,which had mostly contract workers,labourers and young men going in search of jobs and for examinations. They had all boarded the train at Bhagalpur,Bihar.

“The names in the list of dead suggest that most were from Bihar and Jharkhand,” said Birbhum Chief Medical Officer of Health Ashis Mullick.

Rinku Mondal,31,a resident of Jharkhand,Anuj Kumar a resident of Rampur in Bihar,and Mithun Kumar Mondal were all going in search of work.

“Vananchal Express is the connecting train for Bihar and Jharkhand and it is very unfortunate that most of the families who have suffered in the accident are poor people from Bihar and Jharkhand,” said BJP MP from Bhagalpur Shahnawaz Hussain,who was at the accident site on Monday.