A Twitter user claimed that he had warned the railway ministry about a potential mishap at Delhi’s Shivaji Bridge five days before the Ranchi Rajdhani express derailed near the station on Thursday, September 7.
There have been several derailment incidents lately and many lives were lost while a number of people were injured. The former Railway minister Suresh Prabhu was so hurt with these incidents that he offered his resignation to PM Modi; however, he was given a different ministry during the cabinet extension. Now the new rail minister is Piyush Goyal and we are hopeful that he will do something to stop such incidents but the question which arises here is that whether his department is also serious in its functioning or not.
On Thursday, Ranchi Rajdhani express derailed just 200 metres away from the New Delhi railway station and a Twitter user made a claim that he had already cautioned the rail ministry about the potential mishap and that too, five days before the Rajdhani Express derailed.
On September 2, Rakesk Kumar Kaushik sent a photograph to @RailMinIndia which showed a damaged section of the railway track near the station.
He shared the pic with caption, “Condition of rail line at shivaji bridge near platform”.
@RailMinIndia condition of rail line at shivaji bridge near platform pic.twitter.com/M34kbRyMYp
— Rakesk Kumar Kaushik (@rakesk10061974) September 2, 2017
He sent the tweet at 10:47am and got a reply after 25 minutes.
@Drmdelhi Kindly look into this.
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) September 2, 2017
The Delhi division of the Northern Railway was asked to deal with the problem and then DRM Delhi forwarded the tweet to @srden-cdli but the tweet was never answered.
@srden_cdli Look into the matter.
— DRM Delhi NR (@drm_dli) September 2, 2017
Other than Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express incident, two more incidents of train mishaps happened on Thursday and people who were part of the rescue operation were of the opinion that the crack may have been the reason of the mishap. However, the Indian Railways has denied the allegations and said that the real reason will be found out only after proper investigation.
Twitter has slammed the Indian Railways for its “criminal negligence” and demanded strict action against those who are responsible. Here are few selected tweets:
The derailment could have been avoided:
Extraordinary failure to respond on such a grave alert….! If only this tweet was taken seriously.
— Sanjay Tirdiya 🇮🇳 संजय तिरदिया (@sanjaytirdiya) September 8, 2017
Red tapism on Twitter — and today Ranchi Rajdhani Express got detailed at Shivaji Bridge. This accident could have averted @PiyushGoyal! pic.twitter.com/CzIx1Shs5R
— Gaurav Pandhi (@GauravPandhi) September 7, 2017
Thumbs down:
Hats off to you for the effort and thumbs down for the slackness of railways
— UB (@UBquitus) September 9, 2017
Negligence could have caused a disaster:
Dear @PiyushGoyal, heads should roll for this. This is criminal negligence. Thank God no causalities, could've been huge disaster. @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/PDLi2CQlfA
— Raju Das (@rajudasonline) September 7, 2017
Sad!
https://twitter.com/alfaiz_r/status/906474504821411843
Carelessness on the part of railways:
https://twitter.com/HarshitNCRALD/status/905801026116083714
What action did you take?
What action did you take regarding this tweet ?? @PiyushGoyal @PiyushGoyalOffc sir please take note.
— माथापच्ची 🇮🇳 (@tweets_24x7) September 8, 2017
Shameful!
https://twitter.com/Clefer10/status/905797710254444544
Take a note:
https://twitter.com/NavinKTyagi/status/905865324741902336
Rightly said….
Anyone can help through the information but at ground level it's duty of department not civilian, here DRM guilty bcoz he only retweeted .. pic.twitter.com/uW7P0eVG6W
— Arvind k Vishwakarma (@Arvindsirlko) September 7, 2017
This negligence on the part of Railways is not at all acceptable and we hope that it will be more careful in the future.