About 70 class IX students of the school, along with 13 staff members, had gone on an excursion to Kausani, Uttaranchal, and were scheduled to return to the city on Saturday. But in the morning Samik’s father, P R Debnath, got a call informing him that his son was seriously injured and that another student was dead. The accident occurred early on Saturday morning.

According to Samik’s family members, locals said that the accident had occurred between Paramandapur and Sonepur in Bihar. Govind Chandra Deb, vice-principal of the school, said that the staff who were with the children did not realise at first that the two students were missing. Once they came to know, they did not venture out of the train with so many students as it was very early in the morning and they were not aware of the terrain.

According to the school authorities, the accident occurred because the children could not get into the train as a huge number of devotees had entered the sleeper compartment in Bihar.

The father of Trijit Karmakar took a flight to Bihar on Saturday while the parents of Samik, P R Debnath and Mitali Debnath, rushed to the accident site. The remaining students returned to Kolkata on Saturday afternoon.