The Bengal Government has decided to file an FIR against the Metro Railways a day after 47 passengers travelling in a Dum Dum-bound tube train fell ill and had to be hospitalised after a fire broke out in the engine of a running train inside the tunnel barely 100 metre off the Maidan Station.
Apart from the FIR being registered Trinamool Congress MP and Railways Standing Committee chairman on Friday directed Metro Railways General Manager to submit a report on the Thursday’s incident within three days so that the same could be taken up for discussion in Parliament.
Bengal Fire Minister Sujit Bose who met top police officers at Lal Bazar Police headquarters on Friday said “we are taking appropriate action because this was no small incident and many people might have been killed. We have asked the Police to file an FIR and start a case,” adding the forensic experts had been asked to investigate the matter too.
Meanwhile a three-member committee comprising electrical engineers and traffic officers had started an inquiry and were likely to submit a report within ten days’ time, sources said.
A mild blast and fire somewhere around the front wheel of the front coach got the entire passengers of the fully crowded train running inside the tunnel trapped. “Many felt suffocated by the noxious fume and people had to literally break the windows and jump on to the track risking their lives as power supply to the high voltage third railway line was still on,” passengers said.
One of the victims a woman had lost voice temporarily and she was unable to speech even 24 hours of the incident, doctors said.