PANIPAT, India, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Except for ashes and iron, nothing was left on the two coaches of Samjhauta Express, "Friendship Train" between India and Pakistan, which was hit by a terrorist attack early Monday morning.
The whole carriages were burn out. A dust iron bars of the sleeper beds, steel plates of the ceiling and the frames of the electronic fans were all exposed to the air while ashes piled up on the floor.
A burnt smell suffused in the air hours after the accident took place while one small corner still smoked.
According to eyewitnesses, a guard of a railway gate in Panipat, a small town 100 km away from Indian capital New Delhi, noticed the two coaches on fire at about 1: 50 a.m. Monday morning.
The train was stopped immediately and many local residents rushed to the site helping pull out the victims.
In a government hospital 2 km away from where the coaches parked, 66 bodies rested on the floor of the mortuary, almost all charred beyond recognition.
"We cannot even say whether those killed were men or women or Indian or Pakistanis as the bodies are in a bad shape. Only the post-mortem and DNA tests will tell this," said Haryana Chief Secretary Prem Prashant.
A policeman showed Xinhua a half-burnt notebook with several pages left, where a name "Mugal Saddam" and two cell phones numbers can be identified. That is one of the few evidences relevant to their identities that the police discovered from the bodies.
Among the 13 injured, 60-year-old Kamrudeen Shumsudeen from Multan in Pakistan was the luckiest. The pale and tired old man suffered slightest injures on the left hand and smoke affected his aspiratory system.
The rest 12 injured were shifted to a bigger hospital in Delhi which has a squad for burning treatment.
Many passengers on the train were Pakistani who came to India visiting relatives and friends. They were on the way from New Delhi to Atari, a border railway station in northwest Indian state Punjab, and then changed another train to Lahore in Pakistan.
Atif Atiqur Rehman, a Delhi resident, saw off his cousin brother, who came to visit him from Pakistan, on the train Sunday night.
"I got the news about 6:00 in the morning and rushed to this place. I got no information about my cousin so far. These are general coaches. Anyone can sit inside, including him," he said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed anguish and grief at the loss of lives. "The culprits will be caught," he said.
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who visited the scene of blast, said, "whoever is behind the incident is against peace and wants to spoil our growing relationship with other countries."
The incident comes ahead of Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mohd Kasuri's arrival in India on Tuesday.
The bi-weekly Samjhauta Express started between India and Pakistan in 1976 to enable people from both sides - separated by partition in August 1947 - to meet each other regularly.
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The whole carriages were burn out. A dust iron bars of the sleeper beds, steel plates of the ceiling and the frames of the electronic fans were all exposed to the air while ashes piled up on the floor.
A burnt smell suffused in the air hours after the accident took place while one small corner still smoked.
According to eyewitnesses, a guard of a railway gate in Panipat, a small town 100 km away from Indian capital New Delhi, noticed the two coaches on fire at about 1: 50 a.m. Monday morning.
The train was stopped immediately and many local residents rushed to the site helping pull out the victims.
In a government hospital 2 km away from where the coaches parked, 66 bodies rested on the floor of the mortuary, almost all charred beyond recognition.
"We cannot even say whether those killed were men or women or Indian or Pakistanis as the bodies are in a bad shape. Only the post-mortem and DNA tests will tell this," said Haryana Chief Secretary Prem Prashant.
A policeman showed Xinhua a half-burnt notebook with several pages left, where a name "Mugal Saddam" and two cell phones numbers can be identified. That is one of the few evidences relevant to their identities that the police discovered from the bodies.
Among the 13 injured, 60-year-old Kamrudeen Shumsudeen from Multan in Pakistan was the luckiest. The pale and tired old man suffered slightest injures on the left hand and smoke affected his aspiratory system.
The rest 12 injured were shifted to a bigger hospital in Delhi which has a squad for burning treatment.
Many passengers on the train were Pakistani who came to India visiting relatives and friends. They were on the way from New Delhi to Atari, a border railway station in northwest Indian state Punjab, and then changed another train to Lahore in Pakistan.
Atif Atiqur Rehman, a Delhi resident, saw off his cousin brother, who came to visit him from Pakistan, on the train Sunday night.
"I got the news about 6:00 in the morning and rushed to this place. I got no information about my cousin so far. These are general coaches. Anyone can sit inside, including him," he said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed anguish and grief at the loss of lives. "The culprits will be caught," he said.
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who visited the scene of blast, said, "whoever is behind the incident is against peace and wants to spoil our growing relationship with other countries."
The incident comes ahead of Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mohd Kasuri's arrival in India on Tuesday.
The bi-weekly Samjhauta Express started between India and Pakistan in 1976 to enable people from both sides - separated by partition in August 1947 - to meet each other regularly.
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