Four men (aged 18-25) died and two others were left severely injured after they were hit by a Vande Bharat train near a railway booth in Purnea, Bihar on Friday. The incident reportedly took place at around 5 am. The injured were sent to GMC and Railway Police have taken the bodies for investigation. The cause of the accident is under probe.

Officials said the incident took place when teenagers and others were allegedly making reels of oncoming trains along the railway track.

Speaking on the incident, BJP MLA Krishna Kumar Rishi called it “very tragic”. “Our people from the village had come here to the town for some work related to makhana and also to see the fair. Unfortunately, a major mishap occurred in which four people have died and one is injured. As soon as we received the information, we immediately reached the spot. Postmortems are being conducted, and we deeply feel the pain of this heartbreaking incident. Everyone here is mourning, and we all share in this grief together” he added.

“We received information at 4.54 am today about the runover by Jogbani-Danapurb26301 (Vande Bharat Express) between Purnia and Kasba railway stations… It is suspected that they were making social media reels on the track when the incident took place,” an Indian Express report Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of Northern Frontier Railways (NFR) as saying.

Purnea MP Pappu Yadav blamed the administration for its negligence that led to the incident. “This is administration’s negligence. Railway underpass, overbridge are to be constructed at several places in Bihar, but it is not being done,” he said.

“Those who died are from my region; they were from Dalit family. I demand the Railways to give compensation of Rs 20 lakh each to the affected families and strong action should be taken against those responsible for the incident,” the Bihar MP added.