Hirakhand mishap: Never said sabotage caused accidents in Kanpur, says Rail Board chief

Bihar Police had recently given rise to the theory that the back-to-back derailment near Kanpur late last year had “ISI links”.

WATCH VIDEO | MHA Asks NIA To Probe Sabotage Angle In Hirakhand Express Tragedy

Speaking to reporters about accidents and railway safety, Mital said extensive safety drives were going on for the past few weeks to ensure “track integrity”. “Sometimes there could be external factors, but we are not saying that if an accident happens due to external factors it does not affect us. Every single accident affects us,” he said.

About the accident site in Rayagada, Mital, without saying that it could have been sabotage, said a portion of the track was found to be “broken” even though the place was inspected minutes earlier and a goods train had crossed. The accident site is in the Maoist-affected border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. “The Andhra Pradesh government has ordered a CID probe,” he said.

The Odisha Police DIG had on Sunday stated that there was no “Maoist link” to the accident.

It is learnt that around six months ago, in August last year, the same Waltair Division of railways, where Saturday’s accident occurred, saw derailment of a goods train for which the local Maoist organisations subsequently claimed responsibility. But telltale signs were different.

In the case of the August accident, Odisha Police had confirmed a Maoist hand in the accident as local insurgent groups had circulated pamphlets claiming responsibility. In Rayagada, even 24 hours after the derailment, no such thing has not happened.

Considering the patrolman found the tracks all right, and a goods train had passed that point minutes before the derailment, sources in the Railway Board said that miscreants, if any, would have got only about 15 minutes to effect deep cuts on the tracks, which is a very limited timeframe and would possibly require professional-grade track cutters.

The Railways has proposed a CBI probe into an incident of “track cutting” found near Kanpur earlier this month. This is one thing that led to the emergence of the sabotage theory around the spate of accidents in November and December.

Meanwhile, the Railways claimed that an attempted act of sabotage to cause accidents in Uttar Pradesh was foiled early Monday. Two patrolmen found stone slabs kept in top of tracks on a small bridge. When an attempt was made to remove the stones from the tracks, “three-four persons who were hiding, came out and started abusing the patrolmen,” a statement said.

The patrolmen fled and alerted Railway Protection Force, the local police, and the Engineering staff who rushed to the spot and cleared the tracks.