The Railway Protection Force (RPF) in Gujarat registered a case on Thursday evening against unidentified owners of buffaloes that were hit by the Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat express, in which the front portion of the train was damaged, reported PTI.

WR’s senior spokesperson (Ahmedabad division) Jitendra Kumar Jayant said that the RPF had lodged a first information report (FIR) against the unidentified owners of the buffaloes on Thursday evening.

The FIR was filed under section 147 of the Railways Act, 1989, which deals with unauthorised entry into any part of a railway and misuse of its property, RPF inspector Pradeep Sharma said. Four buffaloes were killed in the incident.

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The railway police have not yet been able to identify the owners of the buffaloes so far and efforts are on to find them, he added.

The nose cone cover of the driver coach of the semi-high speed train, which got damaged after hitting the buffaloes, was replaced with a new one in Mumbai, the Western Railway (WR) said in a statement.

At around 11:15 AM, the nose which is made up of FRP (fibre-reinforced plastic) of the newly-launched semi-high speed train suffered damages after hitting the cattles, when it was enroute Gandhinagar. No functional parts of the Vande Bharat train, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently, was damaged.

The incident had occurred between Vatva and Maninagar areas of Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

“The nose cone cover of the train’s driver coach along with its mounting brackets was damaged in the cattle-hit incident. However, the vital parts of the train remained unaffected. The damaged nose cone was replaced at the Coach Care Centre in Mumbai Central,” Sumit Thakur, chief public relations officer of the Western Railway said, as quoted by PTI.

“The nose cover is designed to absorb the impact without transmitting the same to the functional parts of the train. Therefore, it is sacrificial by design and hence replaceable,” he added.

The Express train covered the distance to Gandhinagar Capital station to Mumbai Central without the panel on Thursday.

Thakur also said sufficient quantity of nose cones is kept as spare, and that the nose was replaced with a new one at the Mumbai Central depot, adding the train was back to service without delay.

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The train departed from Mumbai on Friday, adding, Western Railway is taking all necessary action to prevent such incidents in future.

The indigenously designed and manufactured train, the third service under the Vande Bharat series, was flagged off by PM Modi on September 30 from Gandhinagar Capital. It started running from October 1.