Rourkela: Four members of a family - all kanwariyas heading for Vedvyas, a Shaivaite shrine on the city outskirts, were crushed under the wheels of a speeding train on the bridge over the Brahmani.
Three others managed to escape as they clung to the railings of the bridge when the train was passing through it.
The deceased were identified as Nilesh Krishna Das, 38, his wife Jamuna Krishna Das, 32, son Lucky Nilesh Das, 13, and father-in-law Ram Bharose. They were hit by the Mumbai-Howrah Mail on the bridge around 11pm.
However, Nilesh's two other brothers, Taran Krishna Das and Raghu Krishna Das, and their friend Sib Ratan escaped death by clinging to the bridge railings.
Sources said that barring Ram Bharose, all others had boarded the Gondia-Jharsuguda Express from Nagpur. "At Bhillai, my brother's father-in-law Ram Bharose joined us. We got down at Jharsuguda and had our food there. Later in the evening, we caught the Bhubanewar-Rourkela Intercity Express and got down at Panposh," said Raghu.
It was on the suggestion of Nilesh that this group of seven decided to walk down over the railway bridge instead of taking the road bridge. "We had almost reached the other end of the bridge when the train hit Nilesh, his wife, son and father-in-law," said Raghu.
"We saw our sister-in-law's body being thrown into the river," he said.
The driver stopped the train near Panposh and reported the incident to authorities. Within half an hour local residents and police reached the spot.
While the bodies of Nilesh and his father-in-law lay on the tracks, it took some effort on part of a team of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force to locate the bodies of Nilesh's son and wife. The body of Jamuna was found at Arbajharbahal near Lathikata, about 30km from the spot. It had been swept by currents of the Brahmani river.
Government Railway Police superintendent S.K. Kanhar said: "We have registered an unnatural death case. The bodies will be handed over to the family after autopsy. We have also planned to keep a strict vigil on the tracks to avoid recurrence of such accidents."
