Our Bureau /

Even after the long years of Indian Independence, people in rural hinterlands in this region still compel to share century old railway bridges with speedy trains to cross the river and reached to their respected destinations. However, in several occasions, such routine affair ie, while crossing the railway bridges, many have to come under the speedy wheels of the trains!

Like the famous  Dhamara ghat incident at Khagaria district in 2015, eight rural people were run over by a speedy goods train near Sirari railway station on Lakhisarai-Gaya section  under East Central Railway in eastern Bihar’s  Sheikhpura district on last late evening. Over a dozen who sustained critical injuries, struggling with the death till now.

Located on the border of Lakhisarai district, all the victims including the injured persons were returning back from their works and  were on the bridge as they had taken the short cut way as usual when the mishap had taken place.

Railway sources said the accident took place around 7 pm last evening  when at least 10 villagers were crossing the track over an underpass east of Sirari station. “The villagers might have failed to spot the train due to poor weather conditions,” said a source, adding that the train ran over them as they had no place to escape. The nearby villagers rushed the injured to different private hospitals as their condition was serious. The railway station is on the border of Sheikhpura and Lakhisarai districts.

Most interestingly, a top ranking railway officer claimed that  8 people die because of their own negligence under a train. Trains could not change tracks or speed and run over some innocents.

Well said the rail official; he has been repeating the railway’s rules and regulation printed in books etc. But the pertinent question is why people mostly rural mass still prefer  to climb on such railway bridge daily?

To have the answer we shall have to visit such places where there is no sign of any development. Since people don’t have any option to cross rivers through a separate bridge, they are literary compel to take such types of risks. In the same way 34 people were run over by a train at  Dhamara ghat as there were no other options for the rural mass except to cross the railway tracks.

One more glaring example for such backwardness of the region was highlighted during the incident. All the top ranking district and police officials from Lakhisarai first reached to the spot at around 9.30 pm in the night. The distance of Lakhisarai district headquarters to the spot of incident is some 22 km while the distance of the spot to Seikhpura district headquarter is hardly 10 km.  But not a single officer except a SHO from Seikhpura PS was present there.

“Such types of attitude of the bureaucrats are clear enough to understand the ground zero reality of this region. We usually blame the politicians for the lack of development at any area  but bureaucrats are  more responsible for such things because they are the noddle agencies for installing developments in grass root levels,” pointed out Sanjay Kumar, a progressive farmer at Piribazar in Lakhisarai.