Title - Fire: safety commissioner rules out sabotage

Commissioner of Railway Safety Chetan Bhakshi on Wednesday said preliminary investigation into the fire in the two bogies of the Falaknuma Passenger at the Gulbarga Railway Station on Tuesday, which left two persons dead and six injured, did not suggest sabotage as the cause of the fire.Mr. Bhakshi, in a brief interaction with journalists at the station, said that prima facie there appeared to be no lapse on part of the railway staff or the Railway Police Force (RPF) in handling the situation. Asked whether explosion was the reason for the fire as reported in a section of the press, Mr. Bhakshi said the preliminary inquiry did not reveal anything to prove that there was an explosion in any of the two bogies. The Railway police had filed an FIR and they would conduct a detailed investigation to determine the cause of the fire.

The process
Mr. Bhakshi said a lot of things had to be done before arriving at a conclusion on the cause of the fire. He said a notification would be issued by the Railways on conducting a detailed inquiry into the incident and as part of the probe, the public would be invited to submit their views about the incident.

The preliminary report of the inquiry would be submitted in a month and the final report would be submitted in six months.

Mr. Bhakshi, along with officials of the Central Railways, inspected the fire ravaged bogies stationed near the goods shed. Later, Mr. Bhakshi and other railway officials visited the Government General Hospital and spoke to those who suffered burns in the Tuesday’s incident and got the eyewitness account.