New Delhi (Sputnik) — The Ahmedabad-Puri Express reportedly traveled for more than half-an-hour on an unscheduled route carrying around 1,000 passengers while it rolled back around 13 km from Titlgarh station to Kesinga in India's eastern state of Odisha without an engine on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.
As Indian Railways is a state-run enterprise, the government of India is being ridiculed by social media users, most of whom, described the incident as "India's answer to the much-touted driverless car technology."
A Twitter user said, "India successfully tested engineless trains."
Visuals, now viral on the social media, show people shouting from the platform to alert passengers of the train who were clueless that the train they were traveling in was moving backward without an engine.
The Times of India reported that men and women were screaming with fear inside the coaches while some of them were trying to stop the train by pulling the chains.
"Some women and children in my coach were very scared. Some passengers wanted to jump from the coach but I stopped them and told them to pray to God." Rajkishore Nayak, a passenger, told the Times of India.
While there is an advancement in driverless cars /robotics / drones /automation and all things AI, in India we have pushed the envelope with driverless trains & now we have engineless trains. pic.twitter.com/1EopHntsje
The Indian government has ordered an enquiry into the incident. A similar incident happened last year in the Rayagada railway section in the eastern state of Odhisha.