Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday once again said the “truth” about the triple-train accident in Odisha should come out and demanded "extreme punishment" for those responsible for the "largest accident of the century".
The Bengal chief minister mounted an offensive on the Narendra Modi government in her address at a programme where she distributed compensation and other forms of assistance to the relatives of people affected by the rail crash.
“I had thought of not saying this, but the situation has compelled me. Such a huge incident, an accident… efforts and attempts underway to hush it up. The families that lost everything, by way of near and dear ones, they must all be yearning for the true facts to emerge, as to why the accident took place, why so many were killed. It was the largest accident of the century,” Mamata said at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here.
“You saw in case of Pulwama, didn’t you? What the then governor has revealed? Even now, it is all about concealing the facts of the matter,”added the Trinamul Congress chief.
She was referring to Satya Pal Malik's claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had shut him up when he, as the then Jammu and Kashmir governor, had blamed the Centre’s lapses for the massacre of 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama in February 2019.
Mamata, who was the railway minister over multiple stints during both NDA (under Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and UPA II regimes, had previously hinted at factors such as negligence, lack of maintenance and the Narendra Modi government’s de-prioritisation of the railways as the reasons for the Odisha train crash.
The chief minister, who had been steering clear of an unambiguous comment on the Centre’s decision to have a CBI probe initiated into the Balasore rail tragedy, asked on Wednesday what role the central agency could have in the case of an accident.
“What will the CBI do? Had it been a criminal case, then the CBI could have had a role,” she said.
“The actual accident was not probed, everything was cleaned up. No evidence…. I want the truth to come out,” added Mamata.
She went on to react sternly to a vast team of CBI officials deployed since Wednesday morning to raid 14 municipalities in Bengal, besides allied state government offices, to look for alleged irregularities in recruitment to the urban local bodies. The central agency was asked by Calcutta High Court to probe the alleged corruption in the hiring.
“Instead of probing the railway incident, the accident, Delhi sent the CBI since the morning and they entered 14 or 16 municipalities, the urban development department… what next, enter bathrooms? That’s all that remains, after this,” said Mamata.
“Misusing agencies to conceal the real incident, and have them probe water and taps at the municipalities… remember, the future will be horrific,” she added. “By doing these things, such a vast accident cannot be hushed up.”
Underscoring her experience at the helm of the Rail Bhavan, Mamata said the railways were not being charitable or benevolent by giving Rs 10 lakh as compensation to the next of kin of the deceased. She said the railways had such costs covered by insurance and during her stint as the railway minister, the amount used to be Rs 15 lakh.
The chief minister, who visited Odisha twice on Saturday and Tuesday to meet the victims of the rail tragedy, demanded “extreme punishment”.
“All I have to say is… let there be punishment. Those who are responsible for this incident, let them face extreme punishment,” she said.
“Every deceased soul and their kin are weeping. Their peace must be restored. You snatched from them their near and dear ones, they will never return. But at least take the right measures, let there be an accurate investigation. Using lies, one cannot cover up a fire with ash,” added Mamata.
