Amritsar Train Tragedy: Khanna villagers recall horrific 1998 train tragedy, which killed 212

LUDHIANA: The horrific accident near Amritsar on Dussehra has refreshed old wounds in Punjab, especially in Khanna where 212 lives were lost on November 26, 1998 in one of India’s worst train tragedies.
Just like Amritsar, the Khanna train tragedy was a freak accident. At 3.15 am hundreds of lives were lost on the railway tracks between Kaudi and Daudpur villages within seconds after several coaches of Amritsar-bound Frontier Mail derailed and fell on the opposite railway track and seconds later Mumbai-bound Sealdah Express rammed into these derailed coaches. Close to 15 passenger coaches of both the trains were reduced to a pile of metal with hundreds of dead and injured trapped inside.

At that time, despite the lack of mobile phones and no social media networks, a sea of humanity from villages of Ludhiana immediately turned up at the railway tracks to help the government agencies with the rescue effort. They organized langars, carried injured to hospitals and even to their own homes and they took care of the belongings of every deceased and injured.

A day after the Amritsar accident, several elderly residents of Kaudi village, who gathered at the chabootra near Guga Mari temple close to the ill-fated spot where the accident between Frontier Mail and Sealdah Express occurred, recounted the horrific incident of November 26, 1998. Several of these villagers had themselves extracted bodies from the mangled coaches of the trains and had worked tirelessly for hours to help save lives of the injured.

“It was a really a horrifying accident in which innocent people were killed in their sleep. It was very difficult for us to retrieve the bodies and injured people from the totally crushed train coaches,” recalled Baljinder Singh, who added that the Amritsar incident was similar as innocent people were caught unawares and killed. “Whether it was late burning of the Ravan effigy or train driver’s recklessness or any other reason, precious lives have been lost, therefore guilty should be punished,” he added.

His fellow villager Jarnail Singh said the 1998 accidents had left deep scars in the village too. “That accident is an unforgettable tragedy for us, all villagers showed extreme courage to save hundreds of lives of injured persons trapped in the coaches. It was very difficult as body parts of dead passengers were scattered on the tracks and some even were stuck in the bogies, which was a really scary sight, but we held on to our nerves,” he said.

Seeking strict punishment for those responsible for the Amritsar incident, another villager Jeet Singh said, “It was very foggy that day and we faced huge difficulties in carrying out the rescue operations. So many youth and children were amongst the dead which made this one of the worst incidents. We had to take out and carry disfigured bodies and parts of passengers with our own hands and I don’t think anyone will ever forget this. The tragedy at Amritsar has once again refreshed our memories about the 1998 tragedy and we hope that those responsible for the Amritsar tragedy are punished.”

Davinder Singh, a retired commercial inspector of the Indian Railways, who was amongst the first railway officials dispatched to the accident site at Khanna, told TOI, “It was such a devastating accident which I will never forget, when I reached the site, I could see people trapped inside the intermingled bogies of both the trains. It was not possible to look at the bodies which were in such a condition that one can never imagine that something like this can happen. I still can’t forget the scene of 3-4 people whose faces were crushed totally as if they were made of paper. As far as the Amritsar tragedy is concerned, it really is a very freak accident like the one at Khanna and it should not have happened. I think it is more of an ‘act of god,’ same way as the Khanna accident took place in which the coaches of one train derailed and fell on other track exactly at the same moment when train from opposite direction was to pass from there.”