Death’s hour

There was courage on display in the hour before the first fire brigade had reached: ASI Kashmir Singh of the RPF pushed at least five persons to safety before collapsing to death, his half-burnt revolver found in the debris. Alongside was found a headless body, probably of an RPF constable. Its existence perplexed the police, who put the death count at “67 or 68”. The police, incidentally, is the authority that does the head count in such situations.

But this body was one from the bogey whose doors never opened until over three hours after the blast when the gas-cutters could come. No one survived in that bogey. So there was no one to tell the horrific story about how people died banging at doors that were sealed in the name of security. The other bogey would have met exactly the same fate — but its doors had been opened 15 minutes before the blast to let the bombers get off — and the 12 survivors in it should perhaps thank the Almighty for that.

A local journalist we met at the mortuary the next morning summed it up: the villagers had given his newspaper office a call on seeing the fire and the reporter with a small camera was the first to reach the spot. He could only look on, helplessly. “I could see charred hands hanging out for help out of the windows and hear the screams. There was a pond just steps away, but the train was too hot to even go near. For a while I took photos and then I stopped. I rushed one injured on my scooter to the hospital — but he died.”