‘FIR registered against one of two cars, owner has been identified’

Kolkata: The Eastern Railway (ER) has initiated an enquiry into the accident of Khardah which took place on Sunday where Down Hazarduari Express rammed with two cars that were stuck between the level crossing gate and the Railway track.

According to ER authorities, an FIR has already been registered against one of the two cars and the owner has been identified. It is alleged that both the cars had violated the red signal and entered the Railway track bed. By the time the cars could cross over to the other side, the gates were closed. As a result, the cars somehow managed to park on the black top portion adjacent to the Railway track.

However, the rear side of the SUV was close to the Railway track and as a result the trail collided with the car which subsequently collided with the other car. Regarding the incident, Member of Parliament (MP) from Dum Dum, Sougata Roy, on Monday said: “There are problems with the Railway system. How come the proceed signal was given when the gates were not closed. This is a Railway system failure. To construct a bridge in Khardah, several houses need to be evicted. We have not yet solved that problem.” Meanwhile, ER authorities said that they are mulling to construct a Rail Over Bridge (ROB) in Khardah and will approach the state government in this regard.

This apart, ER authorities have informed that an initiative to install sliding booms at level crossing gates across various stations and sections has been taken. This initiative, led by the Signal & Telecom department, addresses the challenges posed when level crossing gate booms are damaged due to incidents such as lorry or truck trying to trespass and dashed with gate boom, ensuring uninterrupted traffic flow for both road and Rail users by using sliding boom.

During June this year, 19 such sliding booms at level crossing gates situated at different stations and in different sections were installed. With this, a cumulative total of 37 level crossing gates are provided with sliding booms in the current financial year up to June.