A blame game erupted between the Union home ministry, Uttar Pradesh government and Railways on Wednesday over the chaos at a ITBP recruitment camp and ensuing mishap, as four more job aspirants travelling atop trains succumbed to injuries taking the death toll to 19.
While the Mayawati government claimed that ITBP and the Centre did not coordinate with the state on the recruitment camp, the Centre hit back saying, “only a handful” of state policemen were present to maintain the law and order.
Northern Railway GM S.K. Budhalakoti also said that they had “no information about the recruitment drive by the ITBP,” and the Railways came to know about it only when a large number of job aspirants started gathering at stations. Rebutting the charges, the home ministry said that despite the clear request and advance intimation by the commandant (ITBP), it is learnt that only a “handful of policemen” were deployed around the ITBP campus. “However, as the crowd swelled, the additional director-general (headquarters) at the directorate-general ITBP, who was monitoring the process, even talked to the district magistrate and the ADG (law and order) UP requesting them to augment the arrangements,” the ministry said in a statement in New Delhi. The ministry also produced four documents, submitted by the ITBP to it, of official communication between local ITBP officials and the state administration. However, the UP government insisted that the alleged “mismanagement” of the ITBP was responsible for the “chaos”.
“The incident was unfortunate, but the ITBP did not inform the Bareilly administration that applications have been invited from 11 states,” a UP government spokesman had said in Lucknow. He added that the ITBP should have given a special information.