Hirakhand Express accident: NIA rules out sabotage, terror angle

As many as 39 people died when the Hirakhand Express derailed early Sunday at Kuneru in Andhra Pradesh. A five-member NIA team, that visited the accident spot along with bomb experts and forensic analysts and met injured victims, has come to the conclusion that the circumstances of the accident do not point to any sabotage activity and hence the terror angle has been ruled out.

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Sources said the accident appeared to be the result of classic rail fracture, which is sometimes seen on poorly maintained tracks.

“There is no trace of explosives, wires or timers. Not even a fragment was found at the spot. The team also examined the broken rails and it appeared to be a natural fracture. There are no signs of the rails having been sawed off manually, something that Maoists are known to do,” an NIA official said.

Home Ministry sources said the NIA was pressed into action as the accident site is a Maoist-affected area and the rebels are known to derail trains. “However, at this stage, even that looks improbable. Further investigation will have to be carried out by Railways,” a Home Ministry official said.

Meanwhile, the NIA, which on Tuesday took over the case of the pressure cooker bomb being found on rail tracks in Motihari, has also ruled out the terror angle in the Kanpur train derailment, that claimed over 150 lives. Three men arrested recently by Bihar Police in a murder case had owned up to keeping a pressure cooker bomb on rail tracks in Ghorasahan in Motihari, and said that they engineered the Kanpur accident by setting off a bomb on the tracks. They reportedly said they had done this on the instructions of the ISI.

The NIA probe has found that the men — identified as Motilal Paswan, Umashankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav — may be bragging about their activity. Paswan later retracted his statement.

“Nothing that the accused have said has been corroborated. They have no details. Even their cellphone locations are not in UP at the time of the accident. There were also no signs of sabotage at the accident spot,” a Home Ministry official said.