A 35-year-old railway employee was killed on Saturday, November 9 at the Barauni Junction in Bihar after he was caught between the buffers of a train engine and a coach during the shunting process. According to reports, Amar Kumar Raut was preparing the couplings of the Lucknow-Barauni Express’ parcel van on Platform 5 getting it ready to be attached to the engine when the tragedy struck.

Shunting is the process of moving and rearranging train cars or wagons within a rail yard or on a specific section of track. A buffer is a shock-absorbing device on both ends of a train’s engine and coaches, designed to reduce the impact of collisions between bogies.

After a video of the incident went viral on social media, East Central Railway officials launched an inquiry and submitted a preliminary report. The report said that there was a lack of coordination between Amar and Mohammed Suleman, the pointsman responsible for giving signals to Amar. However, Suleman said that the driver reversed the engine without any hand signal and held him responsible. “The engine moved a bit away from the bogie and when Amar went to close the buffer coupler, the driver reversed the engine without any hand signal from me.”

Meanwhile, Amar’s family staged a brief protest and refused to allow post-mortem of the body till action was taken against the erring railway staff. Sharswati Chandra, Chief Public Relations Officer of East Central Railway, told PTI that a high-level enquiry has been launched and action would be taken upon completion of the probe.

Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi criticised the Union government for ignoring common citizens. “When will the common people be safe, Modiji? You are just busy making ‘one’ Adani safe. This horrific picture and news is the result of long-standing negligence, neglect and deliberate low recruitment by Indian Railways,” he wrote on X, sharing a news article about the incident.