A suspected attempt to derail trains was thwarted in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur early Sunday and in another incident a special military train was stopped near the Sagphata train station in Madhya Pradesh's Nepanagar after 10 detonators went off on the tracks. Both cases were being probed by the authorities concerned.
The Nepanagar incident happened on Wednesday between Sapghata and Khandwa stations. The Railway Protection Force was investigating it after the Railways termed the detonators as “harmless.”
These detonators went off on tracks, leading to prima facie suspicion of sabotage.
The special military train going from Jammu and Kashmir to Karnataka was halted briefly. Railway sources said the detonators that went off had been given by the railways and are used as part of regular operations.
Due to early suspicions a team of the NIA, Anti-Terrorism Squad and other agencies inspected the Sapghata site on Saturday evening.
A probe will be conducted from all angles, officials said.
In a separate incident on Sunday morning, an empty cylinder was detected on the train track near Kanpur's Prempur railway station.
Officials said the loco pilot of the goods train applied emergency brakes to stop the train averting damage.
The police said an empty cylinder of five kg capacity was found and removed from the tracks. “The loco pilot alerted the railway officials who passed the information to the RPF and Kanpur police, which launched the investigation into the matter,” DCP (East), Kanpur, said.
Earlier, on September 8 an attempt to derail Kalindi Express moving from Prayagraj to Bhiwani was also made using the same modus operandi of placing a gas cylinder on the tracks.
“As far as train accidents are concerned, we will go into the root cause of this matter. Whatever the reason the government is committed to addressing this issue. If this is a conspiracy it will not last long. If there are gaps these will be plugged,” Home Minister Amit Shah said.
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