New Delhi, May 17: Giving a "socialist" twist to the Frontier Mail train tragedy, a leader of CPI (M)-backed agricultural workers' union, who narrowly escaped death in the incident today sought to put the blame for the mishap on the implementation of "WTO prescribed" policies including downsizing of the railways.
"The train was criminally over-crowded as a result of
gross understaffing and no check-up of baggage. My first
perception of fire was a pungent chemical smoke, because of
which the fire spread so fast. This is because of
understaffing, which is a result of cut-backs on jobs by the
Ministry of Railways," Suneet Chopra, joint secretary of the
union told reporters here.
Chopra, who is also a well-known art critic, miraculously
escaped from the tragedy as after boarding the train at
Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh at 1030 hrs, he shifted to
another berth in S-6 bogie from his original berth number 16
in fire-affected S-5 when he found a woman sleeping on it.
He said the number of workers in railways had gone down
from about 22 lakh to nearly 15 lakh in the last few years,
"which was a potential cause for accidents".
Dismissing the NDA government's claim of fighting against terrorism, Chopra said the prevailing conditions in Indian Railways served an "open invitation" to terrorists with its
defective checking and understaffing of security personnel.
Chopra demanded a high-level probe into the incident and
Rs five lakhs compensation for each of the life lost in the
tragedy.
Bureau Report
