Passengers trying to gain entry into a train from the wrong side at Patna Junction.A couple of days back, there was a stampede at New Delhi railway station. Two people lost their lives and scores were injured. Alas, those who died were poor and worse, they are Biharis – expendable, stateless in their own country, a people without a voice. And why did they have to loose their lives: not because they were trying anything adventurous, but attempting something as mundane as going home for a vacation.

If this were an accident, one would have accepted it as fate; if it were a natural calamity, one would have taken it as will of God; if it were a terrorist attack, one would still have somehow consoled oneself. But these deaths are not due to any of these reasons. It is sheer negligence and apathy, or worse, perhaps greed of the low level authorities who try to make an extra buck by offering the limited unreserved seats for a bribe.

Try a simple experiment: look for a train going to Bihar from anywhere in the country. You would find the train starting from the most decrepit platform of the station. Look for the unreserved compartments in the train. A few would be strewn somewhere in the train. In this day and age of information technology, bizarre as it may sound, the authorities can’t figure out how to inform the passengers in advance where exactly the unreserved compartments would be.

Step back and watch the poor passengers. They are nervous souls, many of them ladies and children, anxiety writ large on their face, trying to figure out where they can find a place in the train. Most of them are at the station hours before the scheduled departure. The limited seats can easily be taken up in an orderly manner through a queue. But the minimum administrative control required to ensure orderly queue is simply absent. Watch them run helter skelter as the empty train approaches the platform as they don’t know where to expect their coach. Thus inevitably, the seats end up for grab by the most powerful. And this goes on day after day, month after month. I have personally observed this scene at Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai several times.

Reading this report of two days back, my wife reminded me of her own journey five years back when she got jostled very badly at the Delhi platform and lost her chappals while going to Patna with the children alone as I was abroad. As the platform of her train was changed at the last moment, there was a heavy rush where quite a few people got bruised. She was luckier than many as she had a reservation and the luxury to back go to her apartment at Delhi if she missed her train. Imagine the plight of those who come from smaller towns to catch the train at a large city.

In this scenario, I find the recent incident at the Delhi railway station as no accident. In fact, it is a surprise that unfortunate as the incident is, these don’t happen more often.

I would like to know from the authorities how many times they have changed platform of a train at the last moment and how many of those trains were going to Bihar (or Eastern Uttar Pradesh)? What are the causes of each of these changes and what steps have they taken to improve the system so that such last minute changes do not take place? What steps are taken to mitigate the sufferings of the affected passengers in case such a change of platform becomes inevitable? How are the announcements made? Is there a standard operating procedure which defines how much time the train would be delayed if its platform is changed?

Specifically in the case of the incident of May 17, what was the exact cause for the change of platform? When was this known to the railway authorities and when was the announcement made for the public? Were the trains delayed to allow passengers enough time to make the change? Who was the senior most authority present at the time and what steps, if any, he took to mitigate the sufferings?

I find it most shameful and completely unacceptable that the railway enquiry report states the incident was due to some local conditions and tripping. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/A-stampede-that-never-happened/620597) This is completely insensitive and just cannot be tolerated. With this, the railway ministry has lost its credibility. This incident should be investigated either by a judicial body or some other independent authority. Let us raise our voice against this vigorously. I am afraid if we don’t do this, people who shamelessly called us Bimaru would continue with their apathetic attitude and such incidents would continue to be repeated.