Militants blow up rail track in Kashmir
Suspected militants blew up part of a railway track at Gulbagh village near Kakapora in south Kashmir on Thursday night.
About three metres of railway track were damaged in the blast caused by an improved explosive device (IED) at 10 pm.
At that time no train was plying on the track because the railway movement remains suspended during night for security reasons. “We heard a powerful blast during the night. But due to fear we did not move out of our houses. In the morning, we came to know that the railway track was blasted,” said Reyaz Ahmad, a resident of Kakapora.
The attack caused delay in the departure of train from their respective stations. Senior security, police and railway authorities rushed to the spot on Thursday night. Train services resumed on Friday morning after the track was repaired.
“After the attack, security forces conducted cordon-and- search operation in the neighbouring areas. But the militants had fled from the affected place after the attack,” said Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din, a police official.
He added that security has been beefed up along the railway track to prevent re-occurrence of such attacks.
This is the first time that terrorists have attempted to disrupt railway network in Kashmir. Earlier, the militants attacked the engineers of IRCON, which is laying the railway network in Kashmir. Kashmir is yet to get connected through rail with rest of the country. The work to connect Valley with outside is in progress and is expected to get completed by 2016.
The first train in Kashmir was flagged off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 12, 2008, from Nowgam station. Initially the trains operated from Mazhama-Budgam to Wanpoh-Anantnag. Later the train service was extended to Baramulla in north Kashmir and Qazigund in south Kashmir also.
