Odisha Train Accident: India Batting Legend Offers Free Education to the Children of Deceased

The tragic Odisha train accident that claimed at least 275 lives so far, has led to an outpouring of grief and support. Last Friday, around 7 pm IST, in what has been described as one of India’s worst train accidents in history, three trains collided near Balasore’s Bahanaga Bazar station.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw expressed their grief and announced an ex gratia compensation immediately in the aftermath of the disaster.

A wave of reactions from public figures belonging to different walks of life followed with leading India cricketers including Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma among others praying for the victims.

India batting legend Virender Sehwag has pledged to offer free education at his school to the children of those who lost their lives in the accident.

“This image will haunt us for a long time,” Sehwag posted on his Twitter account.

He continued, “In this hour of grief, the least I can do is to take care of education of children of those who lost their life in this tragic accident. I offer such children free education at Sehwag International School’s boarding facility.”

Meanwhile, a CBI probe has been recommended to find the cause behind the accident.

“We have recommended a CBI probe into the triple train accident,” Vaishnaw told reporters in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.

Vaishnaw, without going into the details, had earlier said the root cause of the accident has been identified.

“The setting of the point machine was changed. How and why it was done will be revealed in the probe report… The root cause of the horrifying incident has been identified… I do not want to go into details. Let the report come out. I will just say that the root cause and the people responsible for the criminal act have been identified,” he had said.