Families in shock as bodies of loved ones reach home

Kolkata: A pall of gloom settled heavily over the homes of the two individuals who perished in the tragic Kanchanjungha train accident at Rangapani

on Monday.

Among them was 62-year-old Shankar Mohan Das, an employee of the Railway Mail Service (RMS). Das was on an extension period of his job at the RMS department of India Post. He had boarded the parcel van of Agartala-Sealdah Kanchanjungha Express from New Jalpaiguri Station.

Das was found dead at the spot of the accident after the goods train collided with the rear-end of the Express train at around 8:55 am. Mayor Firhad Hakim on Tuesday visited his home and met with his family members. While speaking to media persons, Hakim said: “When the Chief Minister was the Railways minister, the Railways had a separate Budget. How many more lives need to be lost? There are 10 lakh Railways vacancies.

With an aim to privatise, they are not recruiting. They will sell everything.” Another person from the city who lost his life was Subhajit Mali, a 33-year-old resident of Ballygunj. Subhajit had travelled to Siliguri for work on Friday and planned to return to Kolkata after a few days. Tragically, he chose to come back on Monday to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, a decision that led to his untimely demise.

“He had promised to bring a cake for his daughter’s birthday and take her for an outing. I was not told till late at night that he had died in the train accident,” the deceased’s wife said.

The collision of a goods train with the rear-end of the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjungha Express at Rangapani killed 11 people, including seven passengers and two Railway staff. The incident took place at around 8:55 am when the train carrying goods containers collided with the Express train between Rangapani and Chatterhat stations under Katihar division of North Frontier Railway on Monday. The train arrived at Sealdah station with traumatised passengers at 3:16 am. A passenger from the general compartment, who had hurt his leg in the accident, recalled the horror.

He said that a loud noise was heard and they saw the nearby unreserved compartment getting quashed by the goods train. He said that his compartment had tilted and people rushed to escape.

It is then when he got injured but counted himself as one of the lucky ones to narrowly escape from the “worst” situation.