Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, alleged today that there is an effort to hide the causes of the Odisha train tragedy and that the CBI is being used to hide the errors since the families of the victims are raising concerns. “I had planned not to mention something, but the circumstances have compelled me to. Such a significant incident has happened. The errors are being attempted to conceal. The families of those who lost everything seek explanations. She claimed that they wanted the truth to surface.
“Why did the accident happen? Why did so many people die? This is this century’s biggest incident. What will the CBI do? If it’s a criminal case, the CBI can do something. Haven’t you seen Pulwama and what the then Governor has said?” she added.
The quadruple train crash on June 2 is being looked into by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). According to Ms. Banerjee, “the actual accident is not being investigated and everything is being cleared.”
“There is no proof. I hope the truth will be revealed. Although the railway disaster is not being looked into, the CBI has been despatched from Delhi here to Bengal and has already visited 14 to 16 municipalities in Kolkata. They have arrived at the department of urban development. Ask them if they will now use the restrooms as well. They can’t hide such a significant accident by doing this, the Chief Minister continued.
In connection with the alleged anomalies in the employment of municipal corporations in West Bengal, the CBI is conducting searches around the region.
Speaking at a ceremony in Bahanaga Bazaar in the Balasore district of Odisha to hand out compensation checks and employment letters to Coromandel Express accident victims. The majority of those killed in the disaster, 288 persons, are thought to be from West Bengal and were on board the train on Friday at Howrah’s Shalimar station.
According to the leader of the Trinamool Congress, the accident is believed to have killed 103 persons from West Bengal and left 40 to 50 more from Bengal missing.
She stated that 635 people in the state had mild injuries and would receive assistance in the amount of $50,000, while 172 people had significant injuries and would receive assistance in the amount of $1 lakh. The Chief Minister continued, “We want to make sure families have stability with the immediate release of relief funds.”
The BJP, the main opposition party, has expressed opposition to the distribution of relief checks, claiming that money was diverted for that purpose. According to West Bengal Government sources, migrant labourers made up the majority of those who perished and were travelling for employment.
“The West Bengal Government is paying compensation to the Coromandel Express Accident Victims from the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board’s (BOCWWB) funds,” stated opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari. To put it simply, “@MamataOfficial is stealing the funds intended for the welfare of the Building & Other Construction Workers, to act as a philanthropist on stage for photo ops.”
“If the Chief Minister wanted the compensation to be paid out as soon as possible, she might have dispatched over her dependable Ministers as messengers to the victims’ homes, who could have given them the money immediately. This course of action would have been far more humanitarian, he continued.
Most of the carriages on the halted goods train were derailed when the Coromandel Express collided with it. The last few coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah Express, which was passing by at the same time, were knocked over by a couple of them.
