BHUBANESWAR: Stalin Das, a 40-year-old from Bhadrak district of Odisha who works at a thermal power plant in Chhattisgarh, was lucky: he cancelled his ticket on the Howrah-Mumbai Mail that collided with a goods train, killing two passengers near Rajkharsawan railway station in Jharkhand early Tuesday.
Das and his two office colleagues, Yogesh Tiwari and Giriraj Chandra, had booked tickets in B-3 coach from Tatanagar to Champa.However, he dropped his travel plans and cancelled his ticket following requests by friends at Tatanagar. While Das stayed back, his colleagues boarded the train at Tatanagar on Monday night. “After seeing my colleagues off, I stayed at a friend’s house in Jamshedpur,” Das told TOI.
He woke up to the tragic news early morning and tried to contact his colleagues, but they did not answer. A few hours later Das was relieved when his colleagues informed him they were safe. Their bogey was among the derailed coaches and they had sustained minor injuries. “It is not a miraculous escape for my friends alone, but for me too,” Das said.