How a station master's angry ‘OK’ to wife sent goods train into Maoist zone

The station master and his wife, whose relationship was already strained, were granted divorce recently.

An ‘OK’ from a station master to his wife, with whom he was on a phone call, resulted in a freight train being dispatched down a restricted route in a Maoist-affected area in Chhattisgarh, resulting in a loss of ₹3 crore to the Indian Railways.

While there was no accident, Indian Railways was forced to pay a fine of ₹3 crore. (Representative image)

Further, the incident led to a battle for divorce between the couple, amid a relationship that was already strained, The Times of India reported. They were granted divorce recently, 12 years after the legal battle began.

The incident: That night, the station master, who is from Visakhapatnam and was on duty, had an argument with his wife, in a call that ended with him saying, “We’ll talk at home, OK?”. He did not realise his microphone was on, and his colleague on the other side mistook this ‘OK’ as the green signal to dispatch the goods train into the Maoist-dominated area.

Thankfully, there was no accident. However, due to a violation of night-time rules, Indian Railways was forced to pay a fine of ₹3 crore.

The divorce battle: Suspended, he filed for divorce in a Visakhapatnam family court. The wife, too, filed a complaint against her husband and in-laws. She also managed to get the case transferred to Durg, her home town, by petitioning the Supreme Court where she claimed her life was under threat.

When the Durg family court rejected his divorce petition, the suspended railway official approached Chhattisgarh high court. A division bench found the wife’s allegations against him and his family ‘false’ and approved the divorce.

Her argument on the phone that caused the ‘OK’ incident and her ‘baseless accusations’ constituted ‘cruelty’ towards the husband, the bench observed.