God saved us, claims Padmavat express passenger

The official of the state estate department Rahul Tankha, who received a severe cut injury on his shoulder and was being treated in the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee civil hospital in the state capital, said that it was by God’s grace that their lives were saved.” Had the train travelled an extra kilometre, the entire train would have plunged into the Ganga,” he said. The accident site was just one kilometre away from the Ganga bridge. He said the derailment was due to the breaking of the couplings connecting the coaches.

Talking to UNI, Tankha, however, was peeved over the ignorance shown by the railway officials towards the passengers of the train at Moradabad and even in Lucknow. 

The remaining coaches of the train reached Lucknow on Monday morning and then left for Faizabad. Tankha said that he boarded the train from Hapur station and within 30 minutes the accident occurred. 

“After the accident, we got out of the BI ( Third AC coach) and immediately caught a bus from the nearby Delhi-Gazraula National highway to reach Moradabad. When we reached Moradabad we were informed that the remain coaches of the train was reaching there so we alighted in the sleeper coaches of that train to reach Lucknow,” he narrated. 

The official said, in Moradabad, the station manager and other railway officials were busy attending the media persons rather than looking after the passengers or caring about the injured. “In Lucknow station too, the situation was the same as no senior official was there to attend to us,” he alleged.