New Delhi: There seems to be no end to attempts to sabotage railway operations.
In another apparent sabotage bid, ‘railway detonators’ were put on tracks in Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam on September 18 as an Army special train was passing through the line.
This incident came to the fore on a day when an empty gas cylinder was discovered on the tracks at Prempur station near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. As many as six alleged train sabotage attempts have been detected in Uttar Pradesh since August this year.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Burhanpur district, the 10 ‘railway detonators’ were seen placed at a distance of a metre from each other. The railway authorities dubbed it as a mischief. The Army has called for custody of key railway personnel like the signalmen and trackmen for interrogation and investigation into the incident.
Train carried Army men, weapons
According to sources, a member of a gang has been detained for questioning. He allegedly carried out the “mischief” while being under the influence of alcohol.
Police said that the special train was heading towards Thiruvananthapuram, and was carrying Army personnel and weapons. A couple of the railway detonators exploded like firecrackers when the train passed over. The locomotive pilot brought the train to a screeching halt by applying brakes after he heard the first explosion. The train remained halted for half an hour at Sagphata station. The entire area underwent inspection.
Dr Swapnil Nila, chief public relations officer of Central Railway, was quoted as saying by TOI that 10 railway detonators were put over a 10m distance on the Mumbai rail route between Sagphata and Dongargaon railway stations.
Gas cylinder removed from tracks
In the Kanpur incident, the police removed the 5-litre cylinder from the line after carrying out a thorough examination. “Around 5.50am, loco pilots Dev Anand Gupta and C B Singh of the Jorhat-bound freight train saw an empty cylinder on the tracks ahead of the signal. The crew quickly applied emergency brakes to avert a potential catastrophe,” a statement issued by North Central Railway (NCR) said. The authorities also spotted two empty beer cans and a snack wrapper at the site.
“The cylinder was put only 30m from the signal. Kanpur Police, RPF and GRP are probing the incident,” Om Narayan Singh, SHO of Kanpur Central GRP, told the news outlet. The Kanpur police said that the possibility of derailment was pretty low but it suggests a sabotage attempt.
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