Utkal Exp derailment: 4 Railway officials suspended; 3 sent on leave

New Delhi: Following the derailment of the 18477 Kalinga Utkal Express yesterday, the Railway Ministry has taken stern action against eight of its officials. It has sent on leave the Member (Engineering), General Manager of Northern Railway and Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Delhi with immediate effect. Besides transferring the Chief Track Engineer of the Northern Railway, it had also suspended four officials including the senior divisional engineer. Member (Engineering) Railway Board Aditya Kumar Mital, General Manager of Northern Railway R N Kulshrestha and Divisional Railway Manager R N Singh have been sent on leave.

Moreover, General Manager North Central Railway M C Chauhan will look after the duties of GM, Northern Railways while Executive Director (Telecom Dev) Anshul Gupta will temporarily be posted as DRM Delhi. According to official sources, Chief Track Engineer of the Northern Railway Alok Ansal has been transferred where as Sr DEN 2 Delhi R K Verma, Assitant Engineer Meerut Rohit Kumar,SSE (Permanent Way) Inderjit Singh and JE (Permanent Way) Pradip Kumar have been suspended. Earlier today Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in his tweet had said the Chairman Railway Board had been asked to fix responsibility on prima facie evidence. "Will not allow laxity in operations by the Board.

Have directed CRB to fix responsibility on prima facie evidence by end of day," Mr Prabhu said. As many as 24 passengers have been confirmed dead and several injured in Yesterday's accident that took place at around 1745 hrs. Fourteen coaches of the ill-fated train derailed at at Khatauli, 25 km from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. However, the Railway Board has put the death figure as 20 and those injured as 92. (UNI)