In a shocking incident, a speeding train ran over a multitude of people gathered to watch Ravan Dahan near the Jora Phatak area in Amritsar last evening. As per the reports, at least 61 people have died and 72 were injured in the accident. People in hundreds had gathered around the ground near Jora Phatak area to watch the Ravan Dahan when the unfortunate incident happened.
It is being reported by several media outlets that permissions for burning Ravan’s effigy were not sought by Congress leader who arranged the function from the local administration, nor was the railways informed about the event. As the effigy was set on fire, the crowd swelled and a large number of enthusiastic people took to the railway tracks nearby to watch and film the Dahan on their mobile phones, oblivious to the fact that the tracks were active railway tracks. It is also reported that Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife, Dr. Navjot Kaur was the chief guest of the ceremony and was midway between her speech when the unfortunate accident happened. Sensing ensuing anarchy, she is accused of fleeing the scene immediately instead of being there and helping the authorities in taking stock of the situation.
Within hours of this agonizing incident, some self-proclaimed investigative journalists cracked the case and established the culpability for this horrendous accident. Rajdeep Sardesai, who by his own admission is half-way around the world questioned the accountability of the authorities involved and insinuated the government’s negligence for “unmanned” crossing responsible for the catastrophe.
But as per the news reports, there was no crossing at the scene of the accident and the closest railway crossing was manned. He quickly retracted the tweet and issued another tweet implying that the incident was caused by sheer negligence and could have been avoided if safety systems were in place, yet again pinning the blame on Railways for the tragedy. Instead of apologizing to his followers for blatantly lying in his previous tweet, he simply assumed that the deletion of his tweet indicated that he no longer holds those views and he has no moral responsibility to inform his readers about the same.
Another troll masquerading as a journalist, Swati Chaturvedi blamed Piyush Goyal for being away in the US at the time of tragedy as if he was clairvoyant enough to have known about the train mishap.
Similarly, Shekhar Gupta and Rohini Singh jumped the gun and blamed the railways of negligence, taking the opportunity to take cheap potshots at the Union Minister of Railways, Piyush Goyal. This is a pattern, we have seen of-late, espoused by eminent journalists to disparage Modi government and take every opportunity to fling dirt at them and playing politics over the dead bodies.
But according to the latest reports, it was discovered that the cause of the incident has been established as gross public negligence and the Railways absolved themselves of any blame, stating that the driver took all the steps required and the cause of the accident was trespassing of the railway tracks. The driver has been arrested and his inquisition is underway. Even the Minister for State Railways Manoj Sinha asserted that it was wrong to blame Railways for the accident. Echoing Manoj Sinha, Ashwani Lohani, Chairman Railway Board, contended that it wasn’t Railways’ fault and that the two manned level-crossing on that track were both closed.
It would be wrong to say that Railways is responsible for this accident. There are two manned level-crossing on that track, both were close. It is a main line. There is no speed restriction there: Ashwani Lohani, Chairman Railway Board, on #Amritsar train accident pic.twitter.com/yGJI32gvXb
— ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2018
Although, no action has yet been taken against the Congress leader who organized the Ravan effigy burning event without informing the local administration as well as Railways of the said event. Though several senior Congress leaders have expressed their anguish over the incident, none of them have come forward to condemn their own leader’s autocratic decision making. In fact, Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of Congress minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was also the chief guest at the event, reportedly went a step ahead exhibiting egregious insensitivity by admonishing the people perished, claiming that she didn’t force them to sit on the tracks or order the train to mow them down. A video has surfaced where the organizers are seen boasting about the massive crowd and scores of people standing on the railway tracks to watch the effigy burning.
Nobody from the eminent circle of journalists is yet to register their concerns as the details of the tragedy have gradually emerged. It’s anybody’s guess why these eminent journalists, who don’t take a fraction of second to squeak and scream against the Modi government have not once insinuated, let alone blame the Congress leader for this tragic accident.
