Patna: At least five women were killed and three others injured when a speeding train ran over a group of Hindu devotees crossing railway lines in Bihar today. The incident took place near Adalpur railway crossing, in Munger district, early on Monday.
Police said a group of women singing songs were crossing the railway lines to reach the banks of river Ganga when a speeding intercity express train rammed into them, killing five on the spot. The women were on way to the river to take a holy dip on the eve of Chhath, a Hindu festival.
The rituals of this festival are rigorous and observed over four days. They include bathing in holy water, fasting and abstaining from drinking water, standing in water for long periods of time and offering prayers to the setting and rising sun.
Reports said the victims failed to notice the train approaching near them owing to dense fog in the morning. Also, the train did not alert the villagers by blowing horns although it was passing through a village railway crossing located at a populated place.
“Apparently, the victims failed to notice the approaching train owing to heavy fog in the morning,” the local district superintendent of police, Ashish Bharti, told the media today.
The incident sparked immediate protests as angry villagers squatted on the tracks, disrupting railway traffic for hours. Owing to the blockade, many trains remained stranded at various railway stations for hours. The local administration has announced a compensation of Rs400,000 (Dh22,598) to each victim’s family.
This is the second such incident in Bihar in recent years. In 2014, 37 pilgrims, a majority of them women, were killed when a speeding express train ploughed into them in Bihar’s Khagaria district. The pilgrims were crossing a railway bridge over a river when the incident occurred. Many pilgrims also died when they jumped into the flooding river to escape being run over by the train.
