Turna Nishita driver likely responsible
Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan yesterday in parliament said the driver of the Turna Nishita was likely responsible for the deadly train accident on Tuesday.
He made the comments while giving a statement on the accident in Brahmanbaria which left 16 dead and scores injured.
“We have suspended three on-duty railway employees over this fatal accident…,” the minister informed the House.
He said the suspended railway employees are: driver Tasir Uddin, assistant Apu Dey and guard Abdur Rahman.
In a bid to investigate the incident, four committees have been formed at different levels, he also said.
Of the injured, Nurul said 10 were being treated at Brahmanbaria Sadar Hospital, nine in Dhaka Orthopaedic Hospital, three in Dhaka Medical College Hospital, three in Kasba Hospital, seven in Dhaka Combined Military Hospital and four in Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital.
The minister also said that each injured person was given Tk 10,000 in compensation, while the Bangladesh Railway (BR) has taken steps to hand over Tk 1 lakh to the families of each deceased.
Nurul also gave assurances that the railways ministry and the BR would remain alert to avert recurrence of such accidents in the future.
NO SIGNAL VIOLATION
A four-member probe committee -- formed by the railways ministry -- yesterday said they did not find any record of signal violation in the Mandabagh railway stationmaster’s register, reports our Brahmanbaria correspondent.
The committee did not find evidence of such violations in the Signal Failure Register -- which is where such violations are manually entered.
The register was stored in the Mandabagh railway stationmaster’s room and the probe committee took a picture of the relevant pages.
The only incident registered was one on November 5, which was when a local train had violated a signal.
Najmul Hassan, the assistant stationmaster, said, “I do not know about this as I was not present that day. The stationmaster can confirm.”
Stationmaster Zakir Hossain Chowdhury could not be reached for comments.
A member of the committee said there was a digitalised centralised system which could be used to find if any violations had taken place.
The committee’s convener Additional Secretary of the railway ministry Rafiqul Islam said, “We have collected necessary information and will submit our probe report after five days.”
The probe committee is comprised of Joint Director General of BR Rashida Sultana, Deputy Secretary of the railway ministry Mir Alamgir Hossain and Chief Signal and Telecommunication Engineer of BR Abul Kalam.
Meanwhile, Mandabagh Railway Station Master Zaker Hossain Chowdhury filed an unnatural death case with Akhaura Railway Police Station on Tuesday night in connection with the accident. Officer-in-Charge of the station Shyamol Kanti Das confirmed the filing of the case.
Another committee formed by the Brahmanbaria district administration has already started their investigation, reports our district correspondent.
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