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Good Samaritans

Villagers around Rafiganj who instantly and selflessly came to the rescue of the Rajdhani victims are a hurt lot with the Railways' sabotage theory pointing fingers at them. INDIA TODAY's Farzand Ahmed reports.

It was violent. And the cries of help were deafening. In the
pitch darkness, there was only one thing that one could look
for: a survivor in the rain-soaked, blood-red coaches of 2301
UP Rajdhani Express that lay strewn around river Dhawa. For
30-year-old Lakeshwari Devi, of village Manripur Tola, the memories of that deadly night are still vivid. Just as the deep sense of sorrow—and hurt.

While much of sorrow is understandable, what Devi cannot get over is the manner in which the motives of villagers like her who rushed to the spot are being questioned. For 36 hours after the gruesome incident, these villagers did not sleep. With their mind firm on rescue and relief, they went about their task tirelessly. And as it appears thanklessly.

What has evidently hurt the villagers is that the Railways hasn't yet deemed it fit to acknowledge their efforts. And adding insult to the injury, they had been insisting that extremists were responsible for this. "We were only doing our duty," says Devi. "God will punish those who abused the villagers and suspected our motives."

Echoing her words are many villagers. "Do good and be damned," says Vyasdeo Singh from Pharsa village who was among the first to come to the site. But wounded as he and the others may be, the pride in their voices in unmistakeable. So what if the
Railways didn't have a word of praise for them. It's the good deed that mattered. A deed that found recognition elsewhere.

A postcard from K. Shiva Prasad, the commissioner of Jalandar, for instance, more than made up for things. Thanking the villagers for the help they rendered to trapped passengers like him, Prasad says, "The way you helped us on that frightful night has added glory to the name of Bihar." Almost everyone has a Xerox copy of the letter as a priceless possession. Looki athom how the Railways and politicians could remain unaffected by
such disasters. Bihar may be a damned state with much talk about a crminalised or extremist-infested society, but as some survivors vouch, the manner in which the villagers rushed to
their rescue even before the the police or others could arrive
was heartening. Despite heavy rains the villagers scurried around to ensure a brisk supply of milk, bread, biscuits, food and water to the survivors. They were the first to rush the injured to the hospital. At the hospital too, the local doctors swung into
selfless action. What they lacked in resources they made up
with their concern.

However, as RJD MLA Suresh Mahto says, the heartless railway officials, who were only thinking of ways to save their faces, found villagers handy. They were quick to put forth the theory
of sabatoge and brand the villagers as naxalites who were responsible for the incident. Soon after Railway Board Chairman I.I.M.S. Rana's remark that the Rajdhani Express derailed because of "sabotage" by extremists, everybody, including Railway Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Bandaru Duttareya, began to parrot the line.

What followed was the invariable and ugly spiral of politics. An agitated Laloo Prasad Yadav and his party spokesperson Shivanand Tiwary demanded prosecution of Kumar, Duttareya and Rana on charges of "cold-blooded massacre" of passengers in sleep. "They had ignored warnings," he said. Releasing a copy of the estimate for the repair of 12 bridges, including bridge No: 445, Laloo dismissed an inquiry by the Commissioner of Railway Safety [CRS] as unreliable and suggested that since Railway authorities had dictated sabotage theory to the CRS, the prime minister should set up a committee of technical experts to find out the causes.

The estimate dated April 30, 2002, prepared by the Senior Mughalsarai Divisional Engineer, clearly stated that existing wooden sleepers used as bridge timbers were worn out and for the safety of trafficm, their renewal was justified. Speed re bridges due to un-serviceable sleepers.

The Railways went on the defensive and claimed that there was nothing wrong with the bridge and even cited the Dhanbad-Mughalsarai portion of the Grand Chord as being exemplary. "Prima facie it is a case of sabotage," they insisted. Eastern Railway General Manager Sunil Sengupta, while asserting that there was no speed restriction on the bridge, said that the derailment occurred 30 meters ahead of the bridge. But this did not satisfy the Magadh division administration headed by Commissioner H.C. Sirohi and Deputy Inspector-General of Police N.C. Dhondiyal, which started its own investigation and came
out with rvealing facts: the Rafiganj Station Superintendent informed the local police station in writing an hour after the accident that the bridge had "collapsed". SP of Aurangabad
S.K. Jha identified three railway personnel who he alleged
brought fish plates and rail and placed them aesthetically at the accident site to establish their "sabotage" theory. The local police also obtained a copy of the Estimate, which described
the sleepers as "unserviceable".

Sirohi too was shocked to see 14 wooden sleepers being burnt and replaced quickly. "We intervened and stopped from further removal and destruction of the worn out sleepers. Clearly it was being done to destroy evidence," he said.

Dhondiyal, on the other hand, also collected copies of the tender notices for the repair to the bridges (including No 445) by epoxy grouting and plastering. The tenders were to be opened on September 11. Jha is reported to have sent a written submission to the Commissioner of Railway Safety (Eastern Railway) Mahesh Chand asserting that the railway officials have held back information about pre-existing cracks in pillars and that the landscape of the accident site had been hurriedly changed.

The civil and police officials also noticed in the course of their investigation that the girder had been hit. Pertinent questions were raised. How come the girder that was supposed to be below the sleepe t the tracks had caved in under the load of the train itself. This led to another simple question by oficials: how could the bridge be damaged if there was derailment due to the removal of fishplates some 30 meters ahead of the bridge?

Officials also point out that had the fishplates been removed ahead of the bridge, mount and drop point, the train would not have travelled up to pillar No. 3 where most of the coaches have clustered. Senior officials also wondered as to how a Special Relief Train from Gaya took one hour 20 minutes though the distance was only 39 km and the tracks completely free due to the accident. Their conclusion: railways authorities wanted to buy time to establish the sabotage theory first and provide relief to the passengers later.

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