Kolkata, May 15: Railway Minister Nitish Kumar today announced compensation of Rs 4 lakhs for the kin of those killed in the Frontier Mail fire tragedy today. Also, ex-gratia of Rs 5000 has been announced for those who suffered minor injuries. He described the fire in Amritsar-bound Frontier Mail from Mumbai as a `terrible incident`.
"We can`t say the cause of the fire right now. Only after proper investigation can we say what caused the fire," Kumar told reporters at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose international airport here.
The Minister said according to latest reports about 40 people have died in the incident and 12 (dozen) were injured. The condition of one or two injured was critical, he added.
Asked whether the casualty was likely to go up, Kumar said as per his latest information the casualty figure was unlikely to go up.
To a query, Kumar said, "you cannot compare this incident with that of last year`s Rajdhani incident. Both are different"
Earlier, Kumar arrived in a special train to Howrah station for attending a number of programmes, including foundation laying ceremony for improvement and development of circular railway at Baghbazar, but rushed straight to the airport to catch 1040 flight to reach the place of accident near Ludhiana in Punjab.
"I am going straight to the spot for inspection and cause of the fire cannot be said from here," Kumar said at Howrah station.
Asked about the possible cause of the tragedy, Kumar said "we should not rush into any conclusion at this moment. There has to be a proper investigation into the reasons behind the fire and then only we can reach any conclusion".
"If we try to rush to any conclusion then we will not be able to prevent such incidents in future," he said.
Asked about the rescue operations, the Railway Minister said since the chief operational manager of the northern railway was also travelling in the same train, he immediately took over the rescue operation.

More than 40 people, including women and children, were charred to death in their sleep when three coaches of Amritsar-bound Frontier Mail from Mumbai caught fire in the wee hours today about 10 km from Ludhiana, railway sources said.
Helpline Numbers:
Ludhiana: 0161-2444193 New Delhi: 011-23344128, 011-23342954.
35 bodies were extricated from the worst-affected S-4 coach and three from S-3 coach. All the bodies were charred beyond recognition. A Northern Railways spokesman said the train had left for Ludhiana after the affected coaches, S-3, S-4 and S-5, were detached. Services on the Ludhiana-Jalandhar section, which were suspended for some time, had now resumed, he added.
Control rooms have been set up at Ambala (Telephone nos: 2634653, 2631275), Saharanpur (2648453, 2610757, 2610175) and Jagadhari (238052, 239170) to provide information people about the incident, railway sources said.
Ludhiana civil surgeon Dr S N Tiwari told at the accident site that most of the injured had "respiratory burns".
Army personnel had also joined the relief and rescue operations. The fire had broken out near Phaguwal village, residents of which were the first to rush to the rescue of the passengers and provide them food and water.
Railways sources at the accident site said it seemed the fire spread to adjoining coaches after breaking out in S-4 coach. As the train was travelling at 90-100 kilometres per hour, the blaze intensified.
Nine of the 13 injured have been identified. They are Sangeeta Rani, Satya Pal and Vikram Singh, all from Meerut, Ashok Bhatia, Anil Kumar posted with BSF Jalandhar, Anil`s wife Mishita, Padmawati, Ajit Kumar and Uday Bhaskar. Bureau Report