A recent fight between a station master of Varanasi railway junction and an electrical signal maintainer led to disruption of train services, including Vande Bharat, for more than an hour, a joint probe report by the Railways said on Thursday.

The probe, held by the three senior officers of the Lucknow Division of the Northern Railway under which the Varanasi Railway Station comes, said that the clash, which took place around 7.30 pm on May 28, disrupted train operations by 40 minutes to one and a half hours at Varanasi as well as other nearby stations.

While trains, such as Patna Vande Bharat Express and Banaras-Buxar Memu Passenger Special were held up at Vyasnagar Railway Station; Ernakulam Superfast Express, Varanasi MEMU Express and Patna Kashi Jan Shatabdi Express were halted at Deen Dayal Upadhyay station, the report said.

All these trains cross the Varanasi station during their journey.

According to the probe, the fight broke out between the two when the electrical signal maintainer Shehzaad wanted to open the Reset Box of Section Digital Axle Counter (SSDAC) while the station master Saroj Kumar stopped him from doing it without proper permission and intimation. This first ensued a verbal argument, which then escalated into a clash.

Kumar, in his statement, alleged that the Shehzaad hit his head and right arm with a stone due to which he bled profusely from the head and suffered a blackout.

"Due to excessive bleeding from the head, I suffered a blackout and was unable to carry out train operation," Kumar said in his statement, adding that senior officers were apprised of the situation.

On the other hand, Shehzaad, defended himself and blamed Kumar for misbehaving with him and using abusive language. Shehzaad stated that he was not opening the Reset Box but wanted to note down its serial number and company's name but Kumar not only stopped him from doing that but also rudely asked him to leave the station master's room immediately.

"When I came out of the station master's room, Kumar also came out, held me by my collar and hit me in my left eye. I pushed him to defend myself due to which we both fell down. While I received injuries in my waist, he got his head injured," Shehzaad said in his statement.

Of the three senior officers of the joint probe team, two held Shehzaad responsible for undisciplined behaviour and ensuing a fight which disrupted the train operations, while the third officer gave a dissenting note and said that decision should be taken after hearing the audio voice recording.

The Additional Divisional Railway Manager (ADRM) of Lucknow Division has set up another probe team of three senior officers -- Senior Assistant Divisional Engineer (ADEN), Assistant Divisional Signal & Telecom Engineer (ADSTE) and Assistant Operations Manager and asked them to submit a report urgently.

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