It has been almost three weeks, since the Balasore incident at Odisha’s Bahanaga Bazar station involving three trains – the Coromandel Express, SMVT Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, and a freight train – left 292 passengers dead and over 1,000 injured.
As the nation awaits answers to their numerous questions, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw assured the people that the probe into the Balasore train accident will find out the truth.
The initial assessment into the three-train pile-up has pointed to alleged criminal neglect of standard operating procedures (SOPs). However, currently the Central Bureau of Investigation is investigating the matter.
On Wednesday, while expressing his confidence in the investigation process, the Railway Minister said that the people should wait for the CBI’s primary investigation to be complete to know the reason.
The minister further added that the truth needs to come out and urged the local newspapers to “go by rumours”.
While speaking to the media, Vaishnaw said, “This is a very very sensitive matter. We should know the actual fact. We should know the technical root cause. Let the CBI’s primary investigation to complete. After this, we will decide about future steps.” He also clarified that the CBI has not filed any primary report.
The Balasore train accident is one of the worst crashes in the history of Indian Railways.