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Inquiry blames 'human failure' for Gaisal disaster

Justice Roy fixed responsibility on about a dozen North-east Frontier Railway personnel, including the drivers and assistant drivers of both the Avadh Assam Express and the Bramhaputra Mail, which collided head-on near Gaisal station in North Dinajpur district after midnight on August two, 1999.

Ruling out any sabotage behind the accident, which killed a number of defence and para-military personnel, Roy said he did not object to the subsequent CBI inquiry in 'national interest'.

Justice Roy, who submitted his report on January 25 to former railway minister Mamata Banerjee, said from his residence in Calcutta that the primary responsibility rested on Ram Narayan Singh, Assistant Station Master of Panjipara, the station preceding Gaisal, where the Avadh Assam Express had halted for 11 minutes on the wrong track.

Roy, who cross-examined about 106 witnesses during his 16-month inquiry, regretted that the operating railway staff at Gaisal did not immediately inform the NF Railway Divisional Headquarters at Katihar about the major accident.

"In fact, the primary report that they sent said that the accident was due to a powerful bomb blast inside the Avadh Assam Express, which was carrying a number of defence personnel from Assam to the war-front at Kargil," Roy added.

"It was a clear case of human failure. The cabinmen, pointsmen, assistant station masters and station masters failed in their duties to either detect or correct the wrong allotment of tracks to the two trains resulting in the collision," Justice Roy observed in his report.

Reiterating that this type of failure could not be called sabotage, he said, that the Commission was aiming at finding whether the human failure itself was an act of 'omission or commission'. "And I found that it was gross omission," he observed.

Justice Roy, who toured Gaisal and adjoining areas extensively, said though Gaisal itself was at the 'receiving end' of errors committed by operating staff at Kishanganj and Panjipara, the Gaisal ASM-on-duty had also shirked responsibility by fleeing from the scene after the accident.

Recommending overhauling of the NF Railway administration, suffering from 'low morale' due to heavy casualty of railway personnel due to insurgency activities in the North East, Justice Roy said in his report that the administration also lacked finances to run the system smoothly.

He also suggested that radio wireless devices be installed to connect the station staff with train drivers, colour signalling to inform the station staff whenever a train is on a wrong line and optical fibre connections to spruce up communication links.

Roy found during the investigation that the remote station in North Dinajpur district had little resources to mobilise immediate rescue operations after a disaster of the magnitude it witnessed.

"The Kishanganj SDO admitted during the inquiry that timely arrival of more gas cutters could have lessened the casualty figure considerably," Roy observed.

He said it was reprehensible that most of the railway staff and other witnesses sought to remain evasive or hid facts thereby hampering the inquiry process.

However, he hastened to add that the inquiry was completed within a record time of 16 months.

The report singled out cabinman Allauddin, pointsman Jagdish Ram and ASM (cabin) S P Chandra of East cabin of Kishanganj station, cabinman Gulabchand Gupta and ASM Ram Narayan Singh of Panjipara cabin besides the two deceased drivers and assistant drivers of the two trains as the erring railway staff responsible for the accident.

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