Three Elephants Killed as Goods Train Hits Them in Bengal's Alipurduar

Three elephants were killed on Monday when a goods train hit them while they were crossing the tracks passing through forests at Rajabhatkhawa in West Bengal’s Alipurduar district, a senior official of North Frontier Railway said.

The Rajabhatkhawa-Kalchini section within which the incident took place is not covered by the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) meant to avert such collisions, he said.

The elephant dashing occurred at 7.20 am when the empty goods train was going from Alipurduar to Siliguri, the NFR official told PTI. Three elephants, including two young ones, died in the tragic incident, he said.

The forested Rajabhatkhawa area is situated beside the Buxa Tiger Reserve in north Bengal. “No caution order was there at that time and such speed limit is operational in the area from 5 pm to 5 am,” he said.

The official said that medical examinations of the driver and assistant driver of the train have been done. Stating that IDS is operational in some parts of the Alipurduar railway division of NFR, he said that it is yet to be installed in the Alipurduar-Kalchini section.

“Tendering process to bring the whole section under IDS is on along with that for Lumding and Rangia divisions of NFR,” the official said. He said that there has been no incident of elephant dashing by trains in the places where IDS has already been installed.