By IANS,
Guwahati : At least 15 people were killed and dozens more fell ill Saturday after inhaling toxic gas while attempting to steal fuel after forcibly stopping a freight train in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, officials said.
A police spokesman said the incident took place before dawn near Rangapahar village close to the Diphu railway station in Karbi Anglong district, about 290 km east of Assam’s main city Guwahati.
The freight train with 48 wagons carrying high speed diesel and petrol was intercepted by a group of people around 1 a.m. Saturday and then the pilferage began, S.S. Narayanan, a railway official, told IANS.
The location where the train was forcibly stopped was isolated and dense jungle terrain. Witnesses and officials said locals opened the wagon’s lid to pilfer fuel when thick fumes coupled with oil spilling out with great force engulfed them, leading to the casualties.
“We saw at least 15 dead bodies scattered in a radius of about 100 metres from the site, while about 25 to 30 others were either unconscious or taken ill with symptoms of nausea and giddiness,” K. Timung, a local villager, told IANS on phone.
Additional police chief of Karbi Anglong district N.N. Goswami said eight bodies were recovered from the spot. It could be possible that some of the dead bodies had been already removed from the area by the time the police arrived and hence a formal death count was not immediately available.
Two militants of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) were among the dead found in the area, Goswami said.
Most of the victims were from the adjoining Nagaland state that borders the area.
The freight train with 48 wagons was carrying high speed diesel and petrol from the Numaligarh refinery in Assam to Mugalsarai in Uttar Pradesh. Railway officials said there were instances in the past when locals intercepted freight trains in the same stretch to pilfer oil. The civil administration and police had been informed about this.
Police said they found about 500 plastic drums, probably meant for offloading fuel from the wagons.
“An investigation has been launched and very soon we shall be able to bust the racket,” a police official said.
Some of the people who took ill after the incident were shifted to hospitals in Diphu in Assam and Dimapur in Nagaland.
The freight train has since left the spot. “The local people probably fill oil onto the drums and ferry the pilfered diesel and petrol to adjoining Nagaland on a regular basis,” Pradip Nath, a local journalist, said on phone from the spot.