Punjab minister and Amritsar East MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday said he will adopt child victims of Friday’s train accident and take responsibility for the affected families, while the National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the Railways and the Punjab government for negligence and sought a report from the state chief secretary and rail board chairman in four weeks.

Sidhu is under fire after the accident that claimed the lives of more than 60 Dussehra revellers at a function organised by his aide Saurabh Mithu Madan and presided over by his wife Navjot Kaur, who reached the event late, delaying the burning of Ravan’s effigy. The delay is seen as one of the reasons behind the tragedy as people watching the burning effigy did not see the approaching train in the dark and got run over.

“It seems that the local authorities and the organisers did not properly manage the crowd, gathered to watch the Dussehra celebrations. It was the responsibility of the State to provide proper safety and protection to the citizens during the event,” the NHRC said while taking suo motu cognisance of media reports about the incident.

A petition was filed by an advocate in the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation or a special investigation team. Dinesh Kumar Dakoria, the petitioner, blamed the event organisers for the tragedy. A similar petition filed in the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur against Navjot Kaur, seeking registration of a case against her. The case will be heard on November 3.

Accompanied by Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, Sidhu told reporters in Amritsar, “I commit to take all kind of responsibility to educate them (the victims) and settle them from my own pocket. Besides, I also take responsibility of the persons who became disabled or the elderly who lost the breadwinner of the family,” he said.

He visited the local civil hospital and Guru Nanak Dev Hospital to enquire after the health of the injured.

Jakhar criticised the manner in which the minister of state for railways and the rail board chairman had washed their hands of the accident by giving a clean chit to the driver.

The Punjab Government disbursed the compensation amount of ₹5 lakh each to 21 families of the deceased in the first phase.