Burnt coaches mute testimony to macabre terror attack

Diwana, Panipat, Feb 19 (UNI) Scattered piles of betel leaves, a popular export item through Samjhauta Express, a stench pervading upto 100 metres from the gutted bogies, scores of security personnel and an eerie silence marked the scene of the fire tragedy at Diwana village, just a few kilometres away from the historic Panipat town in Haryana.

Security men had their hands full in trying to facilitate scores of political leaders visiting the site and in preventing mediapersons stepping over each other for a 'byte' or two.

Half-burnt berths, ashes and metal frames of seats were all that remained inside the two bogies. A spouted vessel, familiar in villages on both sides of the border, for carrying water for ablutions, that survived the blaze sat alongside a half-burnt bag for an owner who may never come back.

While the blasts took place around midnight, by 0100 hrs the Fire Brigade, RPF and the Haryana Police had reached the village and doused the flames.

By 0400 hrs all the dead had been retrieved from the burnt bogies and the injured brought to the local Civil Hospital.

Some of the seriously injured were later sent to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi.

At the morgue in a local hospital, bodies lay covered in red and blue plastic bags awaiting identification. Caskets for the dead had started arriving at the Civil Hospital by noon. By 1430 hrs, about 25 bodies had been put in the morgue.

General services at the hospital were severely hit due to arrival of VIPs and several people were seen returning after being turned away by doctors. However, none of them complained after they learnt about the enormity of the situation.

UNI