Three railway employees, including a sub-inspector on Monday and a pump operator on Tuesday, were arrested by the Gujarat Police in the tribal district of Surat for trying to derail rail tracks in order to get night duty and acknowledgment from supervisors. Subhash Poddar, Manish Mistry, and Shubham Jaiswal, all trackmen to be precise, had made the plot in which two trains were to be switched off at Kim railway station by removing the fish plates and keys of the tracks.
As per the police records, the three men wanted to be with their families during the day and get compliments from their seniors. On September 21, they were inspecting the train tracks when they alerted authorities at around 5:30 AM after alleging that the tracks had been tampered with by miscreants. They claimed that two fishplates and elastic clips had been taken out, which is a clear danger to the trains passing through the area.
But railway officials subsequently told investigating police that a train had crossed the track shortly prior to the disaster being reported. Police noted that the time span between the time of alleged tampering with the track and the passing of the train was too short for anyone to stage the sabotage. Upon examining the employees’ mobile phones, police discovered videos of the tampered tracks recorded between 2:56 AM and 4:57 AM. Further, they noted that Mistry exercised the habit of deleting photos that he had snapped, which added to the prevailing concerns.
This act has raised controversies with reference to the safety of railways and even the character of railway employees. With further probe into the incident, law enforcement is considering the possible intent behind this dangerous hazard and whether it impacted the workers, who not only endangered lives but also deceived co-workers and supervisors.
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