“I saw them off at night. Early the next morning, I got a call from a local resident of West Midnapore saying that the train had met with an accident and my son was grievously injured. There was no sign of my wife and daughter,” Bhatra said.

He rushed his son to a Kolkata hospital where the boy died three days later. The search for his wife and daughter continued. Seven months later, on December 24, his wife’s body was identified after a DNA test.

“I got a call from Liluah police station that body number 51 was identified as Indu Devi Bhatra and I was asked to collect it from a morgue in Kolkata. Her last rites were performed on December 26. But till date there is no trace of my daughter,” he said.

At least 148 passengers of the Mumbai-bound Jnaneswari Express train were killed when the train derailed. A goods train coming from the opposite direction within a few minutes ploughed through the bogies. More than 200 passengers were injured.

The bodies of 17 passengers including Sneha have not been identified to date, and family members are still making rounds of courts and government offices to get their death certificates. They need the certificates for the compensation, estate planning, and, quite simply, closure.

“I was five-years-old when I lost my father Prasenjit Atta. Mother told me that he was going to Bhuswal in Maharashtra for some work. He was the only earning member of the family. All these years my mother has been fighting the legal battle as his body couldn’t be identified. She had to go to Jhargram court, more than 150km away, sometimes for the case. Now I am fighting it,” said Poulami Atta.

Juthika, Poulami’s mother suffered a stroke in March 2019 and was paralysed. She died in April last year.

Surendra Kumar Singh, a resident of Salt Lake near Kolkata, lost four of his family members and relatives in that accident. The bodies of two — his wife and elder son — were never identified.

“My wife Nilam, sons Rahul (17) and Rohit (15) along with my niece Khusboo were travelling on that train. They were going to attend a marriage. All four died. While the bodies of my younger son and niece were identified, I have still not got the bodies of my elder son and wife.”

Text messages sent to the South Eastern Railway’s spokesperson for comment did not elicit a response.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently told the media that she had handed over the probe to CBI but till date there has been no breakthrough. The train was allegedly derailed by Maoists.

“As railway minister, I had given CBI the responsibility to probe the Jnaneswari Express accident, but there has not been any headway in the probe even after 13 years later,” Banerjee told reporters on June 5.

She was the railway minister in the UPA government between 2009 and 2011. The investigation was handed over to CBI in June 2010.

In March, a division bench of the Calcutta high court granted bail to 11 people who were arrested by CBI in connection with the accident and were in judicial custody. In November last year, six other accused were granted bail.

A senior CBI official said: “The charge sheet has been filed. The trial is going on.”

In the Balasore train accident where 289 people were killed and more than 1000 injured, 81 bodies are yet to be identified.

And without that identification, there cannot be closure, as Bhatra’s experience indicates.

“I have married again and now have a son. Life goes on. But the search still continues. I have recently sent a letter to the PMO seeking time from the Prime Minister so that the case can be presented before him and we get justice. How can a passenger just go missing?”