IOL South Asia Correspondent

NEW DELHI, September 10 (IslamOnline)- The Howrah-Delhi Rajdhani Express, choice of rich businessmen traveling between Kolkata and Delhi, derailed near Gaya town in the eastern state of Bihar late last night, killing 100 and injuring 200.

The toll could increase as many of the 600 on board were still to be extricated from the wreckage. One of the cars fell into the Dhave river while five were still hanging precariously from the bridge on which the accident occurred. Till Tuesday, September 10 afternoon, only 60 bodies were found.

The 180 injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, while the 325 unhurt were being sent either to Kolkata or Delhi by special trains. Special gas cutters and other emergency equipment hadn’t reached the spot by Tuesday afternoon. Rail Minister Nitish Kumar arrived with other high officials Tuesday morning.

Kumar said “sabotage was not ruled out” as a possible cause of the rail disaster. He said “fish plates” securing the rail line to the earth were found removed at the site of the accident.

When reporters asked him how the engine and some cars following it passed smoothly while the rear cars derailed, he gave the unlikely explanation that they “passed through due to speed.”

The exact cause of the accident would be known only after a thorough probe by the commissioner for railway safety. Back in New Delhi, the Minister of State for Railways Bandaru Dattatrya reiterated what his boss Kumar said at the accident site, that it was caused by sabotage. “Fish plates were found removed,” he said.

Back in Patna, the capital of Bihar, police ruled out sabotage as the possible cause of the accident. “This does not appear to be a case of sabotage. The railway authorities have jumped to a conclusion without even coming to verify the ground realities,” Inspector General of Police Neelmani said.

When reporters confronted Kumar with the Bihar Police version, he snapped, “I don’t want to go into who tells what”. The Railway Ministry announced an ex-gratia compensation of Rs 25,000 each to the injured.

Seeing the enormity of the accident the divisional commissioner of the area requisitioned army deployment Tuesday for rescue operations. In Delhi, anxious relatives of the passengers complained that they had not been getting desired information from rail authorities.

Frustrated relatives at New Delhi railway station cursed and yelled at rail staff. However, the authorities had been preparing for a special train to carry the relatives to the accident site nearly 800 km away.

Angry relatives said they would rather depend on their own cell phones to get in touch with their relatives traveling by train than depend on railways. Quite a few did get in touch with their dear ones. Most of the cell phone carrying passengers, however, were safe and on way to Delhi.

Some of the injured cell phone-carrying passengers were contacted at hospitals as well. One relative of a passenger waiting at New Delhi railway station said he was happy that he and his family carried cell phones.

Passengers’ relatives took the initial ministerial declaration about sabotage with a pinch of salt because ministers are prone to change their statements every day on issues like accidents and massacres in which large numbers die. The Bihar Police, which should know better, do not agree with the two central ministers’ version, an anxious relative of a passenger said.

Rail accidents in India occur largely because of staff’s negligence and low maintenance. In early years of India’s independence, a conscientious minister of railways resigned his job when a major rail accident occurred. The example he set of owning responsibility has not been followed. Most of the time officials try to find alibis like “sabotage” to save their own skin.