It was unclear how many passengers had been on the Pushpak Express. Mr. Pawar said the train had been packed with people, many of them migrant workers traveling for work. The accident, he said, left victims with severe injuries.
The authorities said that they were looking into the episode.
“We will investigate exactly what was the reason, whether there was an actual fire or whether it is just a rumor spread by any mischievous person,” Maheswar Reddy, the superintendent of police in Jalgaon District, where the accident happened, said to reporters.
Mr. Pawar, the inspector, said seven people who had died were from Nepal and four were from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where Lucknow is. One body remained unidentified, and families of the victims were now in Jalgaon, he said.
Devendra Fadnavis, the top government official in Maharashtra, said late Wednesday that eight ambulances had been dispatched to the scene. The state government would offer financial assistance to the families of the victims, he said on social media, and would cover expenses for people who were injured.
The accident raised more questions around the safety of train travel in India, where millions of people depend on a vast but accident-prone railway network for transport, especially in rural areas.
