Court grants bail to 3 accused in Odisha train tragedy case

The Orissa High Court on Tuesday granted conditional bail to three accused arrested in connection with the 2023 train accident in Odisha’s Balasore district, which killed over 290 people.
The accused, Mohammad Amir Khan, Arun Kumar Mahanta, and Pappu Yadav, were arrested by the Central Bureua of Investigation on July 7, 2023, for alleged negligence that led to the collision of the trains.
Notably, Mahanta was posted as senior section engineer-in-charge and technician in Balasore during the incident, while Khan worked as a senior section engineer in Soro near Balasore.
A single-judge bench, led by Justice Aditya Kumar Mohapatra, ordered their release on a bail bond of Rs 50,000 each, along with two local solvent sureties of the same amount.
The court imposed six additional conditions, including directing the rail authorities not to assign them to their headquarters in the same division where the tragedy occurred.
The Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah Super Fast Express and a goods train collided on June 2, 2023, near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, killing at least 296 people and injuring over 1,200.