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Neelachal Express tragedy: Govt extends ₹5 lakh aid, family says death due to railway negligence
The mourning family members of Harikesh Dubey, who was killed in a freak accident in a moving train on Friday, will get ₹5 lakh ex gratia after they refused to accept the ₹15,000 compensation offered earlier in the day by the railway authorities
The mourning family members of Harikesh Dubey, who was killed in a freak accident in a moving train on Friday, will get ₹5 lakh ex gratia after they refused to accept the ₹15,000 compensation offered earlier in the day by the railway authorities.
“Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has declared a compensation of ₹5 Lakh to the family members of Harikesh Dubey,” chief public relations officer (CPRO)-Prayagraj Himanshu Shekhar Upadhayay told HT over the phone.
On Saturday evening, the family members returned to their village in Sultanpur district to perform the last rites of Harikesh, who was impaled by an iron rod that flew in through a window and pierced his neck when the train, Delhi-Kanpur Neelachal Express, was near Aligarh.
Before the ₹5 lakh compensation was announced, Babita Tripathi, Harikesh’s younger sister, rued: “Was it appropriate on part of the railway authorities to offer ₹15,000 to the family of my brother, who lost his life due to no fault of his own?”
“My father demanded that they offer a job to my bhabhi (sister-in-law) in the railway department. My brother, who worked as a network tower technician, was the sole breadwinner of his family,” Babita said as the family began to leave for Sultanpur district.
Stating that there was no provision to offer a job to kin of the deceased in a case such as this, the Prayagraj CPRO said: “We have sympathy with the family of the deceased... A three-member committee headed by the divisional traffic manager-Tundla (Firozabad), will be conducting an inquiry and consider important technical and non-technical aspects related to the incident.”
“My son died because of the negligence of the railways and I am being asked to accept Rs. 15,000 as compensation,” lamented Santram Dubey, 70, at the post-mortem house in Aligarh earlier in the day.
“The railways need to pay sufficient compensation and a job to my daughter-in-law,” he had demanded.
Meanwhile, police authorities maintained that the investigation was on and the guilty would not be spared.
Harikesh Dubey, who worked as a mobile tower technician in Delhi, was travelling from Anand Vihar (New Delhi) to Lucknow when a five-feet long iron rod lying unattended on the railway track killed him.
Even a day after the incident, the railway authorities were yet to issue clarity on how or why the object was left abandoned on the railway tracks.
Aligarh Government Railway Police registered a case under IPC section 304 (culpable homicide) against the incident, the CPRO had said.
