[ad_1]
By Sudarshan Varadhan
AMRITSAR, India (Reuters) – Indian railway officials and local community leaders on Saturday blamed a crash on a train that crushed many people on the tracks for a festival in Amritsar, a northern city. from the country.
The head of the Punjab state government, Amarinder Singh, told the press on Saturday that 59 people had died, including 57 injured in the accident, and that an official investigation would be conducted during next four weeks.
A large crowd had formed near the tracks on the outskirts of the city to torch effigies as part of a large Hindu festival on Friday, when the train went through the meeting in the dark, said officials and witnesses.
Family members and distressed residents, some of whom were still lashing the bloody fields in search of items belonging to their relatives, said the train had not been warned while he was coming down. the railway as firecrackers exploded in the sky at the annual Dusshera festival.
"I saw this event all the Dussheras here and that had never happened before, the railroads should have stopped or slowed down the train," said Deep Kumari, who watched the festival of the terrace of his house. "Everyone here knows that this effigy is burned and that there is a large crowd."
India's national railways, built largely under British colonial rule, have long been criticized for their safety performance. Critics say the fact that the 23 million passengers who use the network daily use the network on a daily basis to keep fares low has resulted in decades of underinvestment in rail safety infrastructure.
Data from the parliament in July showed that 49,790 people had been killed by track trains in India between 2015 and 2017.
Friday's accident was the worst of years, but Manoj Sinha, the junior minister responsible for managing the world's fourth-largest railway system, said they could not be held accountable for people assembled on rails.
"The railways can not be blamed, the railways have not been informed of the ceremony, why was it organized, no notice was given to the railways?" , he told reporters during his visit early Saturday, surrounded by officials and police.
Clothes were scattered and there were traces of blood around the narrow railroad track on the outskirts of Amritsar where the accident occurred. Police said they were still trying to figure out the number of dead, with some bodies being mutilated without any recognition.
Video footage on television and social media showed giant effigies in the distance and crackers during the passage of the train in the foreground. Many victims shot videos on their mobile phones or took selfies.
Witnesses also stated that Friday 's ceremony had been delayed by a few hours due to the delay of the main guest, which meant that the event coincided with the scheduled arrival of the train.
The anger turned on Navjyot Kaur Sidhu, a former legislator from the Punjab state who arrived late for the cremation of the effigies and then left just before the accident.
Bikram Singh Majitha, leader of the Akali Dal regional party, said that the effigy of the fire usually occurred at sunset, not later.
"You can see on some videos that people have turned that as soon as the effigy has been lit, you can see the train coming from the other side.That was horrible, the organizers have to explain why the delay has been made, "he said.
But Kaur, whose husband, Navjyot Singh Sidhu, is a former Indian cricketer and now minister, said that effigies were burned at six locations in Amritsar and that most of them were in fields near the tracks.
"The railway authorities should at least have given instructions to slow down the speed of the train, such a big mistake," Kaur said on television.
(Written by Sanjeev Miglani, edited by Sam Holmes)
