Minutes before train blast, 2 men left bag, jumped

This is what investigators, probing the blast that killed 13 people and left over 60 seriously injured, have found out. With UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav already terming the blast as ‘‘the handiwork of terrorists’’, the two young men are now prime suspects. Investigators say that a timer device triggered the blast.

A top official of the UP Special Task Force told The Indian Express he was not willing to buy the theory that a terrorist was also killed in the attack. ‘‘There was no human bomb but a pre-set timer device in the suitcase. The terrorists escaped a couple of minutes before the blast, a time which they knew,’’ the official said.

Highly-placed sources say the investigating team is banking on statements of two eyewitnesses, Amarnath Choubey and Ritesh Kumar Gupta, who saw the young men from close quarters.

Choubey, a UP Transport department bus conductor, also boarded the train from Jaunpur. He was headed for Delhi. Critically injured and now admitted in the special ward of Varanasi’s BHU eye department, Choubey told the police about the physical appearance and clothes of the two young men who boarded the train at Jaunpur.

‘‘He says he can never forget the faces of the two youngsters who seemed nervous. After the train left Jaunpur, they tried to pull the chain twice, first at the Badalpur station and then at Singarmau station. The train does not stop at both these stations. Other passengers objected and stopped them each time. This led to altercations. Then, Choubey says, both men jumped off the moving train,’’ said a top UP police official.

As Choubey and other passengers looked in amazement and tried to comprehend what had happened, about two minutes later at Hariharpur crossing, a deafening blast rocked the coach. So powerful was the blast that both Choubey and Gupta, occupying the upper berths, were knocked unconscious. Other than serious burn injuries, they also have vision problems.

‘‘ We are trying to make portraits of the two youngsters from details provided by Choubey and Gupta,’’ the official said.

A team of forensic experts from Agra have now taken away this suitcase from the blast site and are closely examining it. UP Principal Secretary (Home) Alok Sinha was clear: ‘‘The explosives were kept in this briefcase which was planted in the packed general compartment. Some wire and other materials seized from the blast site show that a timer device has been used to trigger the blast. It is no accident, I mean neither an accidental blast nor a cylinder blast.’’

In 2002, same train, same station

On May 12, 2002, 12 people were killed and more than 70 injured when 13 coaches of this very train, Patna-New Delhi Shramjeevi Express, derailed near Jaunpur. Then too, the train had just left Jaunpur station.

The then Railway minister Nitish Kumar called it an act of sabotage and ordered an inquiry because several fish plates had been removed. The team probing the July 28 blast is studying the 2002 incident too.