After Odisha train accident, a quest to pick up pieces, document by document

Odisha train accident: Balasore district collector Datta Shinde said the administration will go out of its way to help those who have lost their documents.

Government Railway Police (GRP) constable Suresh Chandra Das gingerly approaches a small room inside the dingy Railway Police Force barrack near Balasore railway station. The black iron door is locked, the contents precious. Das opens the door, but does so carefully, inch by inch, afraid that they will all come toppling down.

After Odisha train accident, a quest to pick up pieces, document by document

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Inside the room are 150 rucksacks and bags, collected from the debris of Friday’s train accident involving the Coromandel Express, a goods train and the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express, that left 288 dead and over 1,100 injured in India’s worst rail accident in three decades. Each of these bags tell a story; but importantly, as survivors and even family members come looking, they contain things of value to the dead and injured, such as government documents that defined their lives.

Inside the barrack, there is a small register maintained by the GRP, with each bag given a number, its contents written next to it. One black bag contains a passbook, a mosquito net and a blanket. An orange bag, that belongs to one Bishnupada Maity, has both his Aadhaar and voter ID. The bag of SK Mansur Ali has both his birth certificate and his office increment letter. “We have to keep these carefully because the bags contain important documents of passengers who were travelling in the two trains. We have seen documents like matriculation certificates, PAN card and voter IDs as well. Some of the rucksacks have cash too,” said Das.

Twenty-nine-year-old Jitendra Nayak is one of those that has come looking. Nayak boarded the Coromandel Express in Balasore on Friday, intending to travel to Chennai for work as a supervisor in a glass factory. In his lost bag, he had all his certificates – graduation, matriculation, post-graduate computer diploma course, voter ID and PAN cards. He is yet to find his bag. “My injuries will heal soon, but how will I get back my documents? I don’t know how much time will it take to track each bag,” a worried Nayak said.

Like Nayak, the mother of 19-year-old Gadadhar Jena is worried about her son’s documents. Jena, who is in hospital and is scheduled to undergo surgery on an injured leg on Thursday, was aboard the Coromandel Express to work as a security guard, a hard-earned job. “He lost his mobile phone, ₹1,400 that he was carrying, and his documents like his matriculation certificate. I am worried how long it will take to get a duplicate certificate,” Jena’s mother said.

Sociologist Sunil Kumar Padhi, head of the department of social science at Fakir Mohan University in Balasore, said that particularly for the poor, documents like PAN, Aadhaar and educational certificates are crucial for various reasons, from gaining employment to getting government benefits. “These are their social identity documents. I hope the government comes forward to help them.” To be sure, in documents like Aadhaar, once a unique identification number is generated, duplicates are available after due process, but in hinterland India, this process can often be cumbersome and time consuming.

At the barrack, even as some arrive through the day to attempt to identify their belongings, most from the Coromandel Express return disappointed, because a majority of the bags are from two bogeys of the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express.

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“As those two general compartments fell into the ditch near the track and the bags were crushed under their weight, they were salvaged by police two days later. It is possible that the bags of passengers from the Coromandel Express may have been taken away by local miscreants,” said a police officer at Soro police station, refusing to be identified.

Balasore district collector Datta Shinde said the administration will go out of its way to help those who have lost their documents. “We have already recovered over 500 mobile phones and are handing them over to the passengers. Any passenger who has lost his documents can approach my office and we will ensure that they get duplicates in the quickest possible timeframe,” he said.