A joint investigation team (JIT) is still endeavouring to determine the exact cause or causes in last week's mystery Gujranwala train crash that claimed the lives of 17 passengers, including military men and their families. Later reports showed the train had mysteriously exceeded her speed limit before derailing. Federal Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq, who made the latest revelations in a press conference at the Rail Headquarter on Monday, told reporters, "Loose and broken nuts and bolts have been found from the crash site.
An investigation committee is analysing these and an independent joint investigation team is conducting an inquiry and we'll need another two to three days to complete the report." But, he did confirm that there was hardly any initial report being launched while "some people are trying to declare the Chanawa Bridge hardly fit for rail operations". "The bridge [the Chanawa Bridge] was completely fit for daily operations while engineers have confirmed that there was no speed limit for the railway line." He did divulge that a bridge pillar was affected by the crash. "We have found evidence of derailing of the train's engine around 945 feet away from the bridge," the minister, who too is a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader, revealed to the reporters.
"The locomotive was over-speeding and the driver had pulled the emergency break some 945 feet before the bridge and then the engine and bogies derailed. The train, while defying logic, had exceeded the speed limit before the accident. The locomotive had not even come to a halt at the 'stop dead' point where the train diver was supposed to take a break and sign a paper before leaving the signal ... [but he avoided jumping into any conclusion without evidence] Let the team decide if terrorism was indeed behind it. He also said the driver was one of the senior most one and scheduled to retire just after a couple of months.
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