Miraculous escape for passengers as Maoists blast track

Passengers travelling by Ludhiana-Dhanbad Express had a miraculous escape on Monday late night when Maoists blew up the railway tracks barely few minutes after the train crossed the route.

The Maoists, owing allegiance to the banned outfit CPI (Maoist), had given a two-day bandh call on October 16-17 to protest the death sentence awarded to their two colleagues who were found guilty in the killing of Pakur SP Amarjit Balihar. The young IPS officer was blown up in his official vehicle in 2013 while he was returning to Pakur after attending an official meet at Dumka (in Jharkhand).

“The original plan of the Maoists was to blow up Ludhiana-Dhanbad Express. The underground rebels blew up the tracks on Up Line at 10.45 pm near Choudhary Baandh station (on Dhanbad-New Delhi route) on Monday. Within two minutes, they blew up the railway tracks on Down Line as well at 10.47 pm,” a senior police official in Jharkhand told DH.

“Such was the intensity of the blast that around two metres of the railway tracks were uprooted,” the source added.

Several important trains, including Bhubaneshwar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, Kalka Mail and Utkal Express pass through the main route which also connects Howrah with the national capital.

Soon after the twin blasts, movement of most of the trains was stopped on this section. “Some of the trains were diverted late night. However, the damaged tracks have now been repaired and the railway traffic restored,” a senior official in the East Central Railway (ECR) told DH.

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