Following OTV's report on how the corpses were lying abandoned in an undignified manner, members of Being Human Foundation with support of Khujenpali Sarpanch and some locals buried the mortal remains.
It has been alleged that the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Bolangir after conducting post-mortem of unidentified persons killed in train mishaps used to trash them in the dumping yard.
"We learned there is a dumping yard near our railway station where the GRP is throwing dead bodies. Being Human Foundation has launched a 'Help and Call' scheme recently under which last rites of unidentified bodies are being performed. If the administration is not able to give a decent burial to the dead for whatever reasons, it can intimate us. We will receive the body and perform the last rites," said President of Being Human Foundation, Somnath Mishra.
Earlier, Khujenpali Sarpanch, Satyaban Sahu had alleged that thrashing of the corpses by the administration was creating an abnormal environment.
Rubbisshing the allegations, GRP official Kamala Biswal said that unidentified corpses, whenever found, have always been buried. At times, stray dogs dig out the bodies, he informed.
Notably, as per the rule book, body of an unidentified person should be preserved by the GRP for 96 hours after post-mortem. If none turns up to claim the body, the GRP should perform the last rites either by burning or burying it.
The deceased were identified as Dharanidhar Panda, his wife Sangita Panda and their three daughters, out of which two were identified as Ananya Panda and Aparajita Panda. Dharanidhar was reportedly working as a music teacher in a private school in Sambalpur.
As per sources, driver of Sambalpur - Jharsuguda DMU had on Tuesday night 9 o'clock informed the Government Railway Police (GRP) about the dead bodies. GRP along with Railway Protection Force (RPF) had arrived at the spot and recovered the bodies.
"After getting information we reached the spot and found five dead bodies, four female and one male. They are suspected to be residents of Sambalpur. As per preliminary investigation it seems to be a case of mass suicide. The bodies will be sent for post mortem after inspection by the magistrate," said IIC, GRP, G Dung Dung.
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Meanwhile, Sambalpur MLA Raseswari Panigrahi reached the spot to review the situation. "I got to know about the incident from a relative of the deceased persons. It is an unfortunate incident that five members of a family of different age groups take such a drastic step. A proper probe should be done to find out the truth behind the incident," said Panigrahi.
https://youtu.be/1JN7f-KKvzc
Earlier on Sunday, seven children, including five boys and two girls, were rescued with the help of Nayapalli and Capital police. They are currently lodged at two open shelters – Ruchika Social Service Organisation and Vishwa Jeevan Sangha – in the Capital city.
Similarly on July 15, six children, working as child labourers at Khandagiri Square, had been rescued by a joint team of the State Crime Branch and Commissionerate Police. They were later sent to an open shelter home at Jatni.
Total children rescued in the first phase of Operation Muskan-III till date from Bhubaneswar is 19 while as many as 489 children, 427 boys and 62 girls, were rescued across Odisha.
While the first phase will be carried out within Odisha the second phase will focus on rescuing and tracing missing children from Odisha in other parts of the country. The second phase will be launched from July 31.
It may be mentioned that eight special teams have been formed to trace, rescue and rehabilitate missing children under the operation which would continue till August.
They were identified as Sudarsan Biswal (39) of Kakatpur in Puri district and Sibananda Panda (25) of Fategarh in Nayagarh district.
On Wednesday night activists of Bajrang Dal, Hinduraksha Sangathan and People for Animals had detained two persons and thrashed them after tying them to a pole alleging the duo of transporting cattle to slaughterhouses.
Around 20 cows were rescued from the Kochuveli-Guwahati super-fast express. Some cattle food had also been seized while a veterinary doctor and four caretakers were also detained.
The train from Karnataka stood on the track for around two hours following the tension. Later, the service resumed after GRP and RPF officials intervened in the matter.
However, the GRP in its preliminary inquiry found that the duo was ‘legally’ transporting the cows to a government dairy farm in Meghalaya.
This is a proactive method of reducing fire incidents on train and the damage caused by them.
To make the train journey safer, Railways have urged passengers not to carry and also not let their co-passengers carry inflammable objects while travelling on trains and also to be careful.
As the festival season has already set-in and rush of passengers have increased, East Coast Railway has urged passengers to be extra careful. During festivals, lot of passengers travel long distances to be at their homes and they carry along all sorts of things, some of which can also jeopardise safety.
East Coast Railway (ECoR) has informed passengers that travelling in trains with explosives and inflammable objects like crackers, gas cylinder, acid, petrol, kerosene, dry grass/leaves, thermic welding, sigri, stove etc. is not permitted and strictly prohibited. Carrying such inflammable objects in trains is a punishable offence under Section 164 of the Railway Act 1989, whereby the offender may get an imprisonment up to 3 years, or a fine of Rs 1000 or both.
ECoR has formed a special squad to keep a strict vigil on carrying inflammable items in trains for the safety of the passengers during ensuing Diwali Celebrations. If any passenger is seen carrying inflammable items, the co-passengers are requested to inform on-duty railway staff like TTEs, coach attendants, guards of the train, station managers, Railway Protection Force (RPF) & Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel to save the train passengers from danger.
Passengers can also call Help Line Number-182 to report any incident concerning carrying crackers. Steps have been taken by the Safety Department of ECoR to make the train passengers and rail users aware of the dangers of carrying crackers and explosive substances, an ECoR release said today.
The move came after the Collector of Balasore district directed the GRP authorities to take stern action against their two staffs over the incident. The GRP has submitted a detailed report on the incident to the district administration in which it has confessed to having committed the blunder that smacks of gross insensitivity towards the dead, said Collector Pramod Das at a press conference here.
While a special GRP team has gone to the spot and Soro hospital to carry out an investigation into the matter, the rights panel issued summons to the inspector general of railway police and the district Collector.
Notably, Taramani Barik, was killed after being run over by a goods train near Soro-Bahanaga railway station in Balasore district on August 24. Doctors at the Soro Community Health Centre (CHC) declared her dead.
Railway officials, who were supposed to take the body to the district headquarters hospital in Balasore Town for an autopsy, asked the sweepers at the health centre for help after they failed to find an ambulance or any other vehicle to carry the body. As the body had stiffened, the sweepers allegedly broke the leg and hip bones in an apparent bid to make it easier to stuff the body into a sack and carry it.
Satyaban Singh (47), Mukesh Singh (32), Rajabir Singh (25) and Sunil Kumar (32) of different villages in Rohtak and Hisar districts of Haryana were arrested yesterday from near the railway station here during the joint raids conducted by the personnel of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and GRP, the police said.
Three swords, a toy pistol, four mobile phone sets, masks and cash around Rs 30,800 were seized from them. Other three members of the gang, however, managed to escape from the spot, said inspector in charge, GRP Berhampur BK Mohapatra.
Police intensified patrolling in the area to nab the other members of the gang, who fled the spot, he added.
The gang was caught while preparing to loot passengers of the Trivandrum-Guwahati Express train, he said.
"During interrogation, we came to know that the gang was doing the train dacoity for some years across the country.
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They started operation in Kharagpur to Visakhapatnam route for last two years," he said.
He said the exact number of cases pending against them was yet to be assessed.
"After busting of the gang, we have sent messages to the nearby railway police stations. They will intimate about the gang's involvement in other train dacoit cases", said Mohapatra.
According to reports, after examining the footage of eight CCTVs installed at the Puri station, GRP personnel initially detained one Ashok Pradhan of Brahmagiri area and later arrested him when he confessed to the crime during questioning.
“I set the train bogies on fire with the help of a piece of cloth, and fled the spot thereafter,” said the accused.
Pradhan, a habitual robber, was nurturing a grudge as he was barred by GRP personnel from entering the Puri Station. It is pertinent to mention that several cases of robbery have been pending against Pradhan due to which he was not allowed to enter the station.
According to GRP personnel, Pradhan torched the train bogies out of anger and is likely to be taken on remand to elicit further information.
“At around 12:34 PM, the accused entered the train and then came out at the other end of the platform. On the basis of CCTV footage we found him.On March 22, he somehow entered the platform and set the train on fire,” said Santosh Kumar Bahinipati, officer in-charge, Puri GRP.
As many as four bogies of Tapaswini Express were gutted at Puri railway station on March 22. A major tragedy was averted as there were no passengers inside the train as it had halted at platform-4 for routine cleanliness and other maintenance work.
According to reports, a team of AP GRP (Government Railway Police) and CHILDLINE members carried out a search operation in Rajahmundry Railway Station after getting an anonymous call about the girls and rescued them. The 2 girls who were allegedly trafficking them were also detained by the police.
Later, the Andhra Pradesh CHILDLINE informed its Odisha counterparts about the rescued girls and a team of the AP Police brought them to Bhubaneswar.
During interrogation, the Bhubaneswar CHILDLINE officials came to know that the rescued girls are natives of Keonjhar and Gajapati districts.
“They were going to work in a prawn factory in Mumbai. Some police personnel who were in the same bogie of the train informed the Andhra Pradesh CHILDLINE members after suspecting that they were being trafficked. Later, the CHILDLINE officials rescued the girls with the help of the GRP officials and brought them here,” said Snehanjali Mohanty, member of Odisha State Commission for Women.
“I had gone to work there last year. This is the second time that I was going along with my friends. A 'didi' was taking us, however, police detained us in Andhra Pradesh,” said one of the recued girls.
It is learnt that the traffickers used to take Rs 10,000 as commission from each girl, said sources.
Meanwhile, efforts are on to send the rescued girls back home and their parents are being contacted, added sources.
GRP personnel who were present on the spot, abused, kicked and beat up Amit Sharma of News 24. They snatched his camera.
The journalist said that the cops refused to listen to him and continued to thrash him.
"I was locked up, stripped and they urinated upon right into my mouth," Sharma said.
Several scribes rushed to the police station on learning about the incident and put the video footage of cops beating up Amit Sharma on the social media. The journalists also contacted senior officials at the police headquarters.
Station House Officer Rakesh Kumar and GRP constable Sunil Kumar have been suspended and a probe has been ordered into the incident.
The journalist was later released.
Shamli's Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Pandey said that the senior officials had been apprised of the incident which was "unfortunate" and strict action would be taken against the accused.
Odisha Director General of Police R P Sharma came up with the suggestion during the first quarterly meeting of the state level security committee for the railways here Tuesday.
"The Government Railway Police personnel should be trained to detect and defuse bombs (by RPF)," Sharma said.
The RPF is under the Ministry of Railways that deals with safeguarding railway properties such as stations and their premises, while the state government-controlled GRP maintains law and order on board trains.
The RPF already has a unit to detect and defuse bombs.
The DGP also suggested that a joint team of GRP and RPF should be formed so that it can prevent drug trafficking within the jurisdiction of the railways.
A list of criminals with their photographs should be prepared to keep them under surveillance, Inspector General of the RPF, South Eastern Railway, SC Parhi, said.
It was decided that the railways will be asked to improve the infrastructure facilities for the GRP personnel.
A decision was made to increase the cooperation between RPF and GRP by holding monthly meetings at a senior level where day-to-day bottlenecks faced during the work can be sorted out, a senior official said after the meeting.
Safety and security of railway passengers was also discussed in the meeting.
The Odisha Police requested the RPF to install baggage scanners and increase the number of CCTVs at major railway stations, the official said.
Subsequently, the woman raised an alarm following which some other passengers nabbed the youth and handed him over to the GRP. However, the arrested youth has brushed aside the allegations.
"I inadvertently hit the lady's knee with my elbow following which her mobile fell down. She thought I deliberately did it to her," said Rout.
Speaking on the incident, IIC of Government Railway Police, Ranjan Pattnaik said, "With the help of some co-passengers, the woman handed over the accused to GRP. We have filed a case and will forward him to the court."