Nepal's Foreign Minister Arzu Rana expresses sorrow over train accident in Maharastra

Kathmandu, Jan 23 (PTI) Nepal's Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba on Thursday expressed sorrow over the train accident in Maharastra's Jalgaon district that killed 13 people, including seven Nepalese.

In a Facebook post in Nepali, Rana did not mention the exact number of Nepali casualties. She urged India to take care of the injured.

She paid tribute to the victims of the accident and expressed her condolences to their families. She wished for a quick recovery of the injured.

Rana said this morning she spoke to the Ambassador of Nepal to India and the Indian Ambassador to Nepal, urging the Indian government and concerned authorities to provide treatment to the injured Nepalese.  "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is coordinating with the concerned agencies in India, including the Nepalese embassy and the local authorities, for facilitating treatment of those injured in the accident and sending the bodies of deceased to Nepal," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Krishna Prasad Dhakal told PTI.

A district information officer in Jalgaon said 11 of the 13 victims have been identified, and seven of them belonged to Nepal. Earlier, the authorities had put the number of victims from the neighbouring country at four.

The tragedy took place when some passengers of the Mumbai-bound Pushpak Express got off the train after an alarm chain-pulling incident and were run over by the Karnataka Express on the adjacent tracks on Wednesday evening.

Lachchiram Khataru Pasi was among those seven Nepalese victims. Pasi's companions, who survived the tragedy, narrated how they remained huddled in the cramped space between the two trains to save themselves.

Earlier, four Nepalese victims were identified as Kamala Navin Bhandari (43) (who lived in Colaba in Mumbai), Javakala Bhate (60) (who resided at Bhiwandi in Thane), Lachchiram Khataru Pasi (40) and Imtiyaz Ali (11), as per a list provided by authorities.

Pasi's nephew Ramrang Pasi, who lives in Jalgaon, said his uncle hailed from Narainapur in Nepal's Banke district and was in his 50s.

He said his uncle was travelling on the Pushpak Express to Thane from Nepal via Lucknow with five others, all of them daily wagers. Barring Pasi, the others survived, he said. PTI ZH/SBP ZH ZH