West Bengal: 3 elephants killed after being hit by speeding train in 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.

Alipurduar (West Bengal): Three elephants died after being hit by a train in the Rajabhatkhawa forest in West Bengal's Alipurduar district on Monday morning.

Senior officials of the forest department and railways rushed to the spot after receiving the news. A group of elephants suddenly came in front of a parcel train bound for Siliguri from Alipurduar. Three elephants including a cub died on the spot after being run over by the speeding train. It may be recalled that a pregnant elephant was killed by a train in Chapramari Sanctuary on August 10. After August, once again the death of three elephants in a train-hit has cast a shadow of grief among wildlife lovers here.

For quite some time, the death of wild animals due to train collisions has been avoided, but this accident and subsequent deaths of elephants on the railway line of Dooars have again raised questions about the steps taken by the Railways to avoid such incidents. On getting the news of the elephant deaths, the officials of the Buxa tiger project and the railway officials of the Alipurduar division rushed to the spot.

The officials are trying to find out the speed of the train at the time of the collision. In August, the Railways announced an allocation of Rs 77 crore for IDS (IDS - Intrusion Detection System) technology to prevent the death of elephants from being hit by trains.

The Rajabhatkhawa-Kalchini section within which the incident took place is not covered by the IDS meant to avert such collisions, an official 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.