Make no mistake, it was callousness that cost lives

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUKERIAN: <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Mare gaye</span> were the first words from Bhangala station master when he learnt that the passenger train he had just given paper line clearance to had run into the Jammu Tawi Express. It was clear soon after Tuesday''s devastating accident that lack of communication and coordination has not left the Indian Railways.<br /><br />According to sources, the two station masters of two successive stations Bhangala and Mirthal — VK Malviya and Ram Lal — failed to interact on telephone on line clearance, as they were supposed to.Both are on the run and police have failed to trace them, DSP of Government Railway Police Bahadur Singh said. The death toll rose to 38 as one more injured passenger succumbed on Wednesday.<br /><br />Malviya, sources say, gave the numbers to the railway guards of crossing numbers 25 and 27 near Mansar. He told them that DMU had left Bhangala and would be crossing soon.<br /><br />The guard of the railway crossing 27 was probably the first one to see it coming — the DMU smashing into the Ahmedabad-bound Jammu Tawi.<br /><br />Sources say the guard immediately called up the Bhangala station master and told him that he had been told that the DMU would be crossing but how come Jammu Tawi was also on the same track. By that time, it was too late and the two trains had collided at Mansar.<br /><br />But the question remains: if the guard at the crossing had seen something suspicious, why did not he display the red signal?</div> </div>