While government officials were busy passing the buck to one another for Tuesday's train rooftop travel tragedy at Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, three of the 14 critically injured died in the hospital, taking the toll to 18 on Wednesday morning.
Fourteen young aspirants seeking employment in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police at a recruitment rally in Barielly met a gruesome end on Tuesday afternoon when they crashed head on into an over-bridge at Shahjahanpur under which the superfast Jammu-Howrah Himgiri Express was passing with hundreds of them perched on the rooftop.
Shahjahanpur is barely 60 km down the line from Barielly.
"Apparently, while some of the rooftop riders managed to save themselves by lying down flat, some jumped down in panic, others just went crashing into the bridge," said Shahjahanpur District Magistrate Ajay Chauhan.
Already much confusion had preceded the mishap when ITBP suddenly chose to cancel the recruitment, following which an estimated 100,000 aspirants -- who had converged at Barielly from 11 different states for barely 416 jobs that were thrown open -- went on rampage.
They resorted to violence, torching two rail coaches, vehicles, damaging shops and fighting pitched battles with the police. Alleging irregularities and mismanagement in the recruitment drive, the youth targeted bus stations, petrol pumps and other public property.
Around six state-owned buses and several other vehicles were set on fire and several shops were damaged and looted by the agitators.
The Uttar Pradesh government was quick to blame it all on ITBP. "We
fail to understand how ITBP decided to hold a recruitment rally of 11
states at one go; that speaks of very poor management," remarked Brij
Lal.
"We were never informed about the magnitude of the recruitment rally,
otherwise we would have made necessary arrangements," Barielly DM Anil Garg told mediapersons.
Contradicting the state government's claim, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram claimed," Despite ITBP's clear cut intimation, UP government failed to make suitable arrangements."
Railway authorities conveniently washed their hands off the whole affair by seeking to make it loud and clear, "We were kept completely out of the loop as no one cared to inform us that such a massive recruitment rally was taking place in Barielly."
A senior railway official told rediff.com on the condition of anonymity from Barielly, "The railway staff were taken by surprise when they found the Barielly station swarmed by thousands of young men, who looked apparently very agitated and in a violent mood."
He said,"We promptly got the railway police into action, but the station was jam-packed with these young men who went about damaging railway property while raising anti-ITBP slogans."
He said, "Meanwhile, no sooner than the Himgiri Express rolled into the station, a large chunk of them climbed over it, clutching on to all sides of the train including the rooftop and the engine."
According to him, "There was no way that the youth could have been prevented from crowding over the train and no one realised that barely 60 km ahead they would encounter a low over-bridge that lead them a gory end."
