Twenty-three passengers of Barauni-Katihar Passenger (55532) were injured when a shunting driver banged an engine against a compartment of the locomotive at Katihar Junction on Monday.

Katihar divisional railway manager (DRM) Arun Kumar Sharma said: “The accident occurred at 11.05am when the shunting driver was attaching an engine to the passenger train. The train was scheduled to leave for Darbhanga at 12.25pm.”

The task of a shunting driver is to attach engines to trains.

“A shunting driver is supposed to slowly drive an engine backward while attaching it to a train. D.N. Mahato, who was attaching the engine to Barauni-Katihar passenger train, made an error of judgement. He failed to gauge the location of the train. As a result, the engine hit the train hard,” the DRM said.

The impact of the collision was so strong that it moved the train back from the platform by at least 100m. “At the time of the collision, several passengers had taken seats in the compartments. Twenty-three people, including five women, who were in the compartment adjacent to the engine were injured in the accident,” he added.

According to sources, most of the passengers suffered injuries in their legs, hands and heads.

“The injured passengers were treated in the sadar hospital and the railway hospital. All of them are safe and have left for their respective destinations. One of the women, who suffered injuries on her head, wanted to undergo a CT scan. We arranged the facility for her,” Sharma said.

Some of the aggrieved passengers managed to get hold of Mahato and beat him up. The DRM said Mahato has been suspended for the mistake.

“The passengers were injured because of his mistake. Besides suspending him, we have sent his blood sample to a laboratory to check if he was under the influence of alcohol,” he added.