FIR against 4 Rly officials

BHAGALPUR: Officials of Bhagalpur Railway Junction on Sunday lodged an FIR against deputy engineer Ashutosh Mishra, assistant engineer P Acharya and two employees of the Vijay Construction Company in connection with the Howrah-Jamalpur Express mishap at Bhagalpur Junction on Saturday.
The death toll in the mishap reached 38 on Sunday.A preliminary departmental inquiry by a team of technical experts of the railway board and the Eastern railway suggested that violation of safety rules led to the mishap.The probe report was submitted to the railway board on Sunday.
Eastern railway general manager S S Khurana told TOI on Sunday, "The old overbridge was not a distress bridge. It was very old, but it was not in a fatal stage.
Any repair or construction work in the railway takes place after setting up blocks on the tracks at short intervals.
This is the safest medium for us, as we seldom want to disrupt rail services completely. But no guilty official will be spared."
Asked whether the accident took place due to communication gap between the divisional headquarters at Malda in West Bengal and Bhagalpur station in Bihar, Khurana said, "The hierarchy in railway is so channelised that there is no scope for any communication gap."
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced an exgratia of Rs 1 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and compensation of Rs 50,000 and Rs 20,000 to each seriously and partially injured passenger.
According to reports, the 150-year-old arch bridge was declared totally unsafe way back in 1962.