We are deeply shocked and saddened at the tragic death of three school girls in a train accident in Cumilla Sadar Dakhin Thana on Wednesday morning. Mim, 14, Tasnia, 13, and Lima 12, students of class five of Bijoypur Primary School, 12 met the tragic end of their lives when the Chattogram-bound train Bijoy Express crushed them near Bijoypur rail level crossing on Dhaka-Chattogram route.
The train ran over the three little girls, killing them on the spot and dragging one of them 300 metres away from the spot while they were going to their school through a crowded market like every other day.
This brutal killing shocked, stunned and saddened the entire nation. Apart from road crash, many people, including women and children lost their lives in train accidents across the country. People’s lack of awareness while crossing rail tracks is one of the main reasons behind the fatalities. Apart from these, using mobile phones by pedestrians while crossing rail tracks, negligence of railway employees, poor maintenance of level-crossings and rail tracks and lack of monitoring caused the deadly accidents repeatedly.
The government must take
effective measures to prevent
such deadly accidents immediately
Besides, sometimes unruly drivers, eager to pass level crossings in haste, even attack gatemen when they put barriers at level crossings. People were killed either under the wheels of running train or when the train crashed their vehicles on level crossings in different places of the country. A large number of people also received serious injuries and many of them became paralysed as they lost their legs, hands and other parts of the body.
There are 1,468 authorised and 1,321 unauthorised level crossings across the country at present, says Bangladesh Railway latest data. All of the unauthorised level crossings are unmanned while among the authorised level crossings around 62 per cent are unmanned and the rest are manned.
Upgrading and repairing of the existing gates and construction of the new ones have become an urgent need for converting the unauthorised level crossing gates into authorised ones to reduce the possibilities of accidents. The authorities must deploy adequate guards in order to ensure the overall security of the level crossing across the country.
As most pedestrians and motorists do not understand the dangers of level crossings, the authorities in association with the local people will have to create awareness among road users in this regard. The government must take effective measures to prevent such deadly accidents immediately.
