Navjot Singh Sidhu slams Railways over train mishap, asks why clean chit to driver?

Senior Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu found himself in an uncomfortable situation on Sunday after a man who lost his child in Amritsar train accident confronted him at the civil hospital. Sidhu had come to the hospital to meet the injured victims of the train accident.

As opposition parties in Punjab held Congress responsible for the horrific incident, Sidhu questioned the railways’ decision to exonerate the driver of the train that mowed down more than 60 people. “What sort of commission did you set up that you gave a clean chit to him (driver) in one day. Either the driver was permanent or he was engaged for one day. Why do not you say?” Punjab Minister Sidhu questioned.

“When you stop (the train) for a cow, you even get an FIR registered if someone is found sitting on a track. And you ran over people and you did not stop. And what was the speed of the train? It was more than 100 km per hour… Zip it goes,” Mr Sidhu quoted as saying to NDTV.

According to the report, Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife was the chief guest at the event and she was accused of leaving the venue following the accident.

“Train was running at a speed of more than 100 km per hour. Some people say the top light of the train was not working. If the top light was not there, you cannot get it out of the yard. If the top light was working then you can see three km because the train had a glass (window) at the front for the view,” Sidhu added.

He also said the gate man should have seen the people on the track and alerted the driver. “Near the accident site, there is a railway barrier which is manned by a gate man. From a distance of 300 metres, he can see LED lights installed at the event and people were making videos of the event with their mobile phones,” he told NDTV.

Responding to Sidhu’s remark, the railways said that after the accident the driver was not at fault and the people on the railway track were trespassing. It also said that the driver managed to slow down the train to around 68 km/hour from the speed of 91 km/hour.

Also read: Amritsar train accident: Driver is lying, say eyewitnesses