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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Saturday, filed a chargesheet against three railway employees for committing offences like culpable homicide not amounting to murder and endangering the lives of passengers that led to the collision of three trains at Bahanaga Bazar in Balasore district of Odisha on June 2, leaving 296 persons dead and 1,200 injured.
The three railway officials named in the chargesheet filed in the court of Special Judicial Magistrate, Bhubaneswar (Odisha) are Arun Kumar Mahanta, Senior Section Engineer (signal) Incharge of Balasore, Mohammad Amir Khan, SSE (signal) Soro, and technician Pappu Kumar, a CBI spokesperson said. All three officials were arrested by the agency on July 7 after it learned that signaling failure was largely responsible for the pile-up of Coromandel Express, Yashwantpur-Howrah Express, and a goods train at Bahanaga Bazar, Odisha. The accused continue to be in judicial custody.
During the probe, the CBI had alleged that the accused failed to perform their duty ensuring that testing, overhauling, and carrying out changes to the existing signal and interlocking installations were in line with the approved plan and instructions.
“Based on evidence adduced during investigation of the case, commission of offences under sections 304 (Part II) of IPC (Culpable Homicide not amounting to murder), 34 r/w 201 of IPC (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence with common intention) and 153 of Railways Act, 1989 (Endangering safety of persons travelling by railways by willful act or omission) were made out against the said accused,” the CBI spokesperson stated.
Further investigation has been kept open on the aspect of a larger conspiracy for possible involvement of others, the agency informed.
The CBI registered the case on June 6 at the request of the Ministry of Railways and after getting consent from the Odisha government to probe the train mishap. The case was earlier registered at Balasore by railways but was handed over to the CBI.
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