Trains mowed down 8,700 people in Covid year

June 02, 2021 17:00

Over 8,700 people were mowed down on railway tracks in 2020 even though passenger train services were severely curtailed due to the nationwide coronavirus lockdown, with officials saying many of the victims were migrant workers.

The Railway Board shared the data on such deaths for the period between January and December 2020 in its reply to a question by Madhya Pradesh-based activist Chandra Shekhar Gaur under the Right to Information Act. "Based on the information received from the State Police, 805 people suffered injuries and 8,733 people died on the railway track between January 2020 and December 2020," the Railway Board has said.

Officials separately said that many of those dead were migrant workers who chose to walk home along the tracks because train routes are considered shorter than roads or highways. They said these workers also chose the tracks as this way they could evade police for violating lockdown norms, and also had the belief they would not get lost midway.

"They also assumed that no trains would be running because of the lockdown," one of the officials said.

While the fatalities during 2020 were fewer compared to four years immediately before that, the numbers are still significant given the fact that the passenger services were restricted after the coronavirus lockdown was announced on March 25. Only freight trains were in operation during the lockdown and before the railways started Shramik Special trains from May 1 to ferry migrant workers home.

The passenger services have been reopening in phases, and by December, around 1,100 special trains were in operation along with 110 regular passenger trains. The services have now been restored to 70 per cent of the pre-Covid period.

While many fatalities on tracks last year could not be registered for some reason or the other, the deaths of 16 migrant workers after being run over by a freight train in Maharashtra's Aurangabad last May rattled many as they were killed while resting on the tracks thinking no train would be coming due to the Covid suspension.

Image: Policemen at the railway track where 16 migrant workers died and several were injured in a train accident in Aurangabad last year.

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