Title - PFA blames Rlys for animal deaths

Dehradun : In the aftermath of deaths of two elephants and 16 cattle on the killer railway track inside the Rajaji National Park, People for Animals, Uttarakhand, has put the onus of these mishaps on the railway authorities, asserting that the scattered concrete railway track sleepers along tracks did not give an exit space to the animals. These concrete sleepers are lying unattended for more than a year alongside 10 km of the railway track.On January 13, two elephants, including an expectant female elephant, were run over by a Dehradun-Delhi Janshatbadhi train. This was followed by another incident on February 4, when as many as 16 cattle were killed by the Kathogodam Express. Such incidents reveal that the animals got no space to jump off the track, leading to their death.A team of People For Animals, Uttarakhand, led by Member Secretary Gauri Maulekhi, who visited the site of these mishaps to ascertain reasons, was aghast to find that a large number of old concrete sleepers laying scattered on both sides of the track made an escape almost impossible for animals.

In a strong-worded letter to the Chief Engineer, Northern Railways, People For Animals, Uttarakhand, has asked the Railway authorities to remove these concrete sleepers at the earliest. Maulekhi said the Railway authorities needed to be sensitive towards animals.

Threatening to hold Rail Roko on March 9 by staging demonstration on the affected railway track, Maulekhi said the animal lovers would no more tolerate this callous attitude of the Railway authorities.

It is noteworthy that the Wildlife Trust of India has been successfully running a train-hit mitigation model in the affected stretch since 2002 and it was only this year that wildlife like elephants and domestic animals were run over by trains, evidently revealing that concrete sleepers lying alongside tracks for the past one year could be the reason behind these mishaps.