At least 120 passengers were feared killed and Hundred passengers were killed and 160 injured after suspected Maoists derailed 13 coaches of Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express leading to a collision with a goods train in West Midnapore district early on Friday.
Mangled heaps of bogies lying off the tracks, passengers in bandages and plasters and a row of hearse vans lined up -- the scene at the site of the derailment of the Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express near Jhargram virtually resembled a war zone.
At least 120 passengers are feared killed and 150 injured after suspected Maoists blasted rail tracks in West Midnapore district early on Friday, derailing 13 coaches of a Mumbai-bound express train, five of which were hit by a speeding goods train.
The accident site in West Midnapore, West Bengal, has been strewn with mutilated bodies and belongings of passengers of the ill-fated Gyaneshwari Express.
Maoist-backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities leader Uma Kanta Mahto was killed in an encounter with joint security forces in West Midnapore district of West Bengal on Friday, said the police.Mahto was wanted in connection with the Gyaneshwari train disaster case that had claimed 148 lives on May 29 this year. The government had suspected that Maoists had planned the derailment of the passenger train.
The West Bengal police on Saturday night said Maoists were behind the Gyaneshwari Express derailment and claimed to have identified the culprits behind the incident that has claimed 136 lives so far. "Those who did it are all members of Maoist squads. We have identified them and a search is on to nab them," Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh told reporters. He said two members of a Maoist squad, who were recently released on bail, had led the operation.
The derailment of the Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express in West Midnapore district, which left at least 75 passengers dead on Friday, threw up a number of contradictions on what caused the mishap. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who flew to the accident spot in a helicopter, said the derailment was caused by a bomb blast and indicated that Maoists were behind it.
Anxious relatives of passengers in the Howrah-Mumbai Express, which was targeted by Maoists on Friday morning, are desperately calling up helpline numbers in Mumbai to know the status of their near and dear ones.Maoists blasted rail tracks in West Midnapore district in West Bengal in the wee hours of Friday, derailing 13 coaches of the Mumbai-bound Howrah-Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express. Five coaches were hit by a goods train, leaving at least 65 dead.
An ex-Army jawan escaped death in the Gyaneshwari Express tragedy, but five of his relatives who were sleeping in the S-5 coach of the ill-fated train were crushed to death. "Five of my family members died as the goods train rammed into the passenger train were their berths were located," he said, sitting on the side of the tracks at Sardiha, as rescuers lifted the mangled coach from the tracks.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has suspected the involvement of Maoists in the derailment of the Gyaneshwari express on Friday as the incident comes on the first day of the 'black week' being observed by the Naxals.
Twentytwo-year-old Shreya Sen lost her right arm in the horrific Gyneshwari train mishap earlier this year, but she hasn't lost her will to succeed. The transcript of her inspirational chat with Rediff readers.
Pulling no punches in her attack against the Bharatiya Janata Party for allegedly pursuing 'political vendetta' against the Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday charged that the Central Bureau of Investigation was being used as a 'political tool' by the National Democratic Alliance government and was functioning as 'a department of the Prime Minister's Office'.
