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Tag: Odisha Train Accident

  • Odisha train accident: Even after a month, people are wandering in search of their loved ones

    Odisha train accident: Even after a month, people are wandering in search of their loved ones

    Bhubaneswar (IANS). People have still not forgotten the pain of the triple train accident that happened a month back in Balasore, Odisha. At least 293 people were killed, and over 1000 were injured in India’s worst train accident in the last three decades. But even today some people are busy in search of their loved ones.

    After India’s worst train accident, the families of the passengers started searching for their loved ones. More than 210 people were able to identify the bodies of their family members. Those who found their loved ones in injured condition in hospitals were lucky.

    However, even after a month has passed since the incident, many families are still waiting for their next of kin. Ashok Rabidas of West Bengal is one of them. He is waiting for the authorities to allow him to take the body of his younger brother Krishna Rabidas (22).

    After wandering from one hospital to another, Ashok Rabidas reached AIIMS Bhubaneswar where bodies of unknown persons have been preserved.

    At the same time, to identify the body of his brother Krishna, the AIIMS authority has sent the DNA samples of the concerned body to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in New Delhi.

    Meanwhile, AIIMS Bhubaneswar has received DNA reports of 29 bodies matching those of the other claimants. However, the victim Ashok said that Krishna’s DNA report has not come.

    Ashok, a native of Harishchandrapur Tripaltala village in West Bengal’s Malda, was staying here in a guest house provided by the Railways. Since the wait is not over, and he has to return to his work, Ashok leaves for his village four days early. Now his brother Sibcharan Rabidas is waiting in Bhubaneswar for Krishna’s mortal remains.

    Sharing his story with IANS, Ashok said that Krishna worked as a daily wage laborer in Bengaluru since July 2022. On June 2, he was returning home by Yesvantpur Howrah Express for his younger sister’s wedding.

    He said, “My sister was going to get married on June 12. Now it has been cancelled. After my sister’s marriage, we had planned to get Krishna married. Ashok said, but the accident spoiled everything.

    He further said, after the incident my father and mother are completely broken. Worryingly, we have not yet received the body of our brother, due to which nothing is normal in our house.

    Similarly, Sibkant Roy of Cooch Behar district of West Bengal is in shock. The body of his son Bipul Roy was taken to another family in Bihar.

    Sibkanth Roy said, I was in Arunachal Pradesh when I came to know about the accident. I immediately went home and requested our BDO to arrange a vehicle for me. Roy said, he arranged it and I reached Balasore.

    After searching here and there, the father finds Bipul’s picture on a wall among the pictures of all the dead persons. When a stunned Sibkant discovered his son’s body, it was found that someone from Bihar had already taken him away.

    After reaching AIIMS Bhubaneswar, I came to know that my son’s body has been taken away by someone else. Roy asked, what should I do now?

    Of the 293 people killed in the train accident on the evening of June 2, 81 unidentified bodies have been kept at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, out of which 29 have been identified through DNA tests. Another 52 bodies are yet to be identified.

  • Heatwave condition to continue for next 3-4 days in Odisha

    Heatwave condition to continue for next 3-4 days in Odisha

    Bhubaneswar: Heatwave to severe heat wave conditions are likely to continue in some districts of Odisha for the next three to four days, the regional center of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) here said in a bulletin on Sunday morning. After that, the temperature is likely to drop slightly.

    While six places in the state experienced severe heatwave conditions, three districts experienced heatwave conditions during the last 24 hours.

    The summer currents and above-normal temperatures experienced in various locations in the state during the last 24 hours areas are as follows:

    Severe heatwave:

    Hirakud: +7.2°C
    Keonjhar: +7.1°C
    Bolangir: +6.9°C
    Jharsuguda: +6.6°C
    Sambalpur: +6.5°C
    Heatwave

    Koraput: +6.0°C
    Sundergarh: +5.9°C
    Titlagarh: +5.5°C
    Bhavanipatna: +5.5°C

  • Odisha train accident: Railway Board orders double-locking of signalling assets

    Odisha train accident: Railway Board orders double-locking of signalling assets

    New Delhi: The Indian Railway Board on Saturday ordered a double-locking arrangement for all its signalling assets after the Odisha train accident. The Board also issued directions to bolster the protocol for the commencement of train movement after maintenance work.

    The Railway Board has ordered a double-locking arrangement for all relay rooms with train controlling mechanisms, relay huts housing signalling and telecommunications equipment of level-crossings, and point and track circuit signals to keep a check on accidents.

    The order however indicated that the access to the relay room was key to the signalling interference that caused the Coromandel train accident.

    “With enough evidence to show that some human interference was involved in the interlocking system that caused the deadly accident, it is now important for us to make it tamper-proof,” said a senior railways official.

    “This double locking will ensure that no one can access these locations in isolation,” he added.

    This is the third such order on signalling issued by the Railway Board since the accident is being probed by the CBI.

  • Yet again, goods train catches fire in Odisha!

    Yet again, goods train catches fire in Odisha!

    Balasore: A fire broke out in a goods train yet again in Odisha. A fire broke out in Jaleshwar under Balasore district of Odisha on Saturday.

    This incident has been reported from Rupsa station of South Eastern Railway. A fire allegedly broke out while the coal-laden goods wagon was standing at the station.

    While the cause of the fire is unclear, the Balasore Fire Department has reached the spot and is trying to douse the fire.

    An investigation has been started by the railways as to how the fire started.

    The passengers of the Durg-Puri Express were left panic-stricken near Khariar Road Station of Odisha’s Nuapada district on June 9, 2023 evening after a minor fire was reported in the train.

    According to sources, the brake pads of the AC coach of Puri-Durg Express caught fire due to certain glitches in the brake shoe.

    Trouble seems to have been mounting on the railway department as accidents in trains seem to have become frequent with each passing day.

    The recent tragic three-train mishap i Bahanaga station of balasore district in Odisha still haunts people. It is worth mentioning that the incident that took place on June 2, 2023 (Friday) was gut wrenching  and as many as 288 people lost their lives, more than 1000 were injured.

  • Casting Couch Slur Rocks Odisha Film Industry As Producer Sanjay Nayak & Actresses Prakruti & Jasmine Trade Charges; Check Chats

    Casting Couch Slur Rocks Odisha Film Industry As Producer Sanjay Nayak & Actresses Prakruti & Jasmine Trade Charges; Check Chats

    Bhubaneswar: Ghost of the casting couch returned to haunt Ollywood after WhatsApp conversations between actresses Prakruti Mishra, Jasmine Rath and other artists, in which they accused producer Sanjay Nayak aka Tutu Nayak of exploiting newcomers, went viral on Friday.

    Sharing her experience, Jasmine told the media that she was thrown out of a project for refusing to meet Tutu Nayak at a club in Bhubaneswar. “I had a professional meeting with him about 4-6 months and he was worried how I would be able to manage dates since I was doing a serial and was under contract. They then asked me to join at a club. Since it was already 10 pm and I was shooting for Manoj Mishra’s ‘Hi Krushan’, I declined. My friend, who is also his relative, called to assure him that there would be no problem. He was also the associate producer of the show I was doing and was therefore managing my dates,” she said while responding to the producer’s press brief in which he alleged that she lacked professionalism and asked her boyfriend to contact him on dates.

    Jasmine further alleged that this had hurt his ego and he went on a character assassination drive against her because of which she lost some more movies for which discussions were on.

  • Odisha Train Tragedy: School Doubling Up As Morgue To Be Reconstructed Under 5T Initiative

    Odisha Train Tragedy: School Doubling Up As Morgue To Be Reconstructed Under 5T Initiative

    Bhubaneswar: The 65-year-old Bahanaga High School in Odisha’s Balasore district, where bodies of train accident victims were kept, will be completely demolished and reconstructed under the 5T initiative of the Odisha government, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced on Friday.

    The decision was taken after Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena, 5T Secretary VK Pandian, and other concerned officials held meeting with Balasore Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde, members of the school managing committee, panchayat representatives, teachers and students via videoconferencing to seek their opinion in this regard.

    The demolition work started this morning in the presence of school managing committee members and Works Department authorities.

    Students and teachers had expressed reluctance to attend school, where classrooms and the hall were used to line up the bodies, many of them disfigured, despite those being cleaned and sanitised by Fire Service personnel with memories of nightmarish experience of the tragedy deeply entrenched in their minds. With locals alleging that the rooms still had bloodstains at some places, the authorities feared that the school might see zero attendance once it reopened after summer vacation.

    “Considering children’s mental health, a decision was taken in the meeting to demolish Bahanga Bazar High School and the primary and elementary schools in its vicinity. It will be developed into a model school under 5T initiative,” Pandian said.

    Awareness programmes will also be conducted for the students to eradicate their fear regarding the building.

    Notably, bodies of Bahanaga Bazar train accident victims were shifted to the school immediately after being retrieved from the mangled coaches. Those were later were relocated to a spacious building on the outskirts of Balasore town. Later the unidentified corpses were shifted to morgues in Bhubaneswar-based hospitals.

  • Foul smell at Odisha train accident site was from rotten eggs!

    Foul smell at Odisha train accident site was from rotten eggs!

    Balasore: The foul smell from the area that was emanating from the site of the Odisha train accident was from rotten eggs.

    According to a team that had gone to the site the compartment was emanating foul smell due to rotten eggs, not because of human body.

    Three tractors of rotten eggs were retrieved from the parcel van of the train said reliable reports. The foul smell is gone now, informed Aditya Kumar Chaudhary, CPRO, South Eastern Railway. 

    The people living near the Odisha train accident site are deeply traumatized said reports on June 7 (Wednesday). The scars of the accident are yet to heal.

    There seemed to be a new reason for trouble for the local people as the foul smell emanating from the site of the accident was making it difficult for them to live there.

    According to the locals, two coaches of the Yesvantpur Howrah Express still remain upturned at the accident spot and the foul smell emanating from them is unbearable.

    The locals had further added that the stench from the coaches started after a spell of rain was experienced in Bahanaga, the station where the train crash took place.

    The locals had requested the Government and the railway authorities to pick up and take away the coaches as early as possible. The locals say the smell is unbearable. It is difficult for them to live in their house or to eat food.

    The locals had further threatened that if the foul smell from accident site continues and the administration fails to take any remedial measures, they will be forced to resort to protests and a strike.

    It is worth mentioning that on the ill-fated evening of June 2, 2023 (Friday) three trains were involved in a gut-wrenching crash. In the tragic and one of the worst-ever train accident as many as 288 people died and at least 1000 others were injured.

  • Odisha train accident: Railways disburses 22.66 cr compensation to kin of 661 victims

    Odisha train accident: Railways disburses 22.66 cr compensation to kin of 661 victims

    Bhubaneswar: The Ministry of Railways has disbursed compensation of Rs 22.66 crore so far to the kins of 661 victims in connection with the Balasore train accident, informed South Eastern Railway, CPRO, Aditya Kumar Chaudhary on Friday.

    SER CRPO said, Trains are plying on all four lines as the lines are fit. The family members of the deceased and those who sustained serious injuries in the Balasore train accident have received the compensation.

    Meanwhile, The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has seized a hard disk from the relay room of Bahanaga Bazaar railway station.

    According to reliable reports, the hard disk contains the time when the green signal was given to the train, what the track status was then and many other information related to the accident.

    CBI has taken over the investigation of the case from the GRP, which had already filed the case. Some members of Central Forensics are involved in the investigation team along with the CBI. After registering the case, a 10-member CBI team reached the accident site and conducted an investigation. They inspected the north, and south cabin, signal room, and operating system, and recorded data of Bazar Station. The investigation team also interrogated the station master and other railway employees.

    Worth mentioning, 275 people were killed while over 1,100 others were injured following a triple train mishap at Bahanaga railway station in Odisha’s Balasore district on June 2.

  • Odisha STF Arrests 4th Accused In OTP-Sharing Scam Involving Pak Agents

    Odisha STF Arrests 4th Accused In OTP-Sharing Scam Involving Pak Agents

    Bhubaneswar: The STF of Odisha Crime Branch has nabbed one more accused in the OTP-sharing scam in which three persons, including a teacher, were earlier arrested for allegedly sharing OTPs with operatives of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents in Pakistan.

    The accuse, identified as Pradyumna Kumar Sahoo of Nayagarh, was arrested on Wednesday.

    According to an official release, Sahoo is a graduate and earlier worked as territory sales executive with Idea and as Jio Point manager. Currently, he is engaged at Black Buck, a Fastag company.

    “He had supplied/sold more than 500 pre-activated SIMs and 150+ pre-activated Paytm Wallets to Pathani Samanta Lenka who was arrested earlier in this case. These SIMs and wallets were sold to various cyber criminals and Pakistani Intelligence Operatives (PIOs). Some of the SIMs and wallets were also used by PIOs/ISI agents including some based in Pakistan’s Karachi and Baluchistan,” it added.

    Investigation revealed that the accused used to generate multiple SIMs on the same identity by fooling/tricking the unsuspecting customers/SIM buyers on the pretext of some technical issues/glitches. “It was learnt that for activation of different wallets – PhonePe, Google Pay and others – registered mobile numbers linked with the Bank Account are mandatory. But in case of Paytm wallet account, costumers can also share user ID and password with others (having different mobile number) for operating the said account once OTP verification is activated,”

    The STF will study/analyse this and if needed, will write to Paytm to change the settings, it added.

    Last month, raids were conducted and three accused persons, identified as Pathani Samanta Lenka (ITI Teacher), Saroj Kumar Nayak and Soumya Pattanaik were arrested for allegedly fraudulently procuring huge numbers of SIMs in the name of others and selling the OTPs (linked/generated using the SIMs) to various clients including some PIOs/ISI agents in Pakistan as well as in India. In return, they were paid by some Pakistani agents based in India. They were also in touch with a woman Pakistani agent, who was arrested last year under Official Secrets Act and in a honey-trap case in Rajasthan.

    In their greed for making quick money, they were selling OTPs and mule bank accounts to cyber frauds and foreign nationals for at least one year.

    These OTPs were being used to create various accounts/channels on social media like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and also on online shopping sites like Amazon and Flipkart. These are also used for opening email accounts. These social media platforms operated by Pakistan-based agents were used for anti-national activities like spying, communication with terrorists, radicalisation, running anti-India propaganda, fuelling anti-India and divisive sentiments. Since these accounts were registered/linked on an Indian mobile number, people found them trustworthy.

    Apart from these, they were also in the business of creating and selling mule accounts through social media groups which are again used in various kinds of crimes, the STF added.

    Notably, National Security Act (NSA) has been invoked against Lenka, the alleged mastermind of the scam. He had allegedly gone into hiding after a suspected ISI agent Guddu Kumar was arrested by West Bengal police in December last year.

  • A third of Odisha’s Sundargarh lacks access to banking services 

    A third of Odisha’s Sundargarh lacks access to banking services 

    ROURKELA: A vast rural population of the tribal-dominated Sundargarh district continues to be left out of the financial inclusion network with 96 out of the total 279 gram panchayats (GPs) without access to banking services.

    Sources said the majority of the residents of these 96 panchayats depend either on agriculture or work as daily wagers for their livelihood. The remaining 183 GPs, despite having banking services, do not possess adequate branches forcing villagers of far-flung areas to travel miles and spend the entire day at the bank to avail of services.

    Lead District Manager, Sundargarh, Don Bosco informed that 96 of the 279 GPs in Sundargarh face difficulties in availing financial services including the financial benefits of different Central and state schemes in Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. 

    “The rest 183 GPs have a total of 273 branches of 32 nationalised and private banks, 145 rural post offices and other financial institutions providing bank services along with several banking correspondents and customer selling points (CSPs) meant for any village unit with population over 500,” he added.

    Lack of internet access, poor road connectivity and scattered population are to be blamed, Bosco said adding, the district administration is working towards increasing the rural bank branches. “Rural banks play a significant role in the delivery of cooperative and commercial sector agriculture credits but their limited branches impose suffering on farmers seeking loans,” he added.

    As many as 17 rural branches of Sundargarh District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd (SDCCBL) disburse cooperative sector agriculture loans through 44 large and multi-purpose cooperative societies.

    SDCCB chief executive officer Bhakteswar Mallick said the district’s cooperative sector agriculture credit target for the 2023 kharif and rabi seasons is Rs 1,250 crore. Besides, the commercial sector agriculture credit disbursement target for the Kharif season alone is Rs 240 crore. This speaks volumes of the suffering faced by farmers in getting agriculture loans.

    Sources said as per the 2011 census, the district has about 13.55 lakh rural population of which those 96 unbanked GPs conservatively account for about 4.6 lakh population. The scenario is however, expected to change for the better in less than a year. The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) targets to introduce 4G services through BSNL by January 2024 as 140 towers are getting installed from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for 140 pockets of Sundargarh still lacking mobile and internet networks.