One of the three accused arrested for planting a pressure cooker bomb on a rail track at Ghorasan in Mothari district of Bihar did not have any role in planting explosives on a rail track in Kanpur last year, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has concluded.
Over 140 people were killed following the derailment of the Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur on November 20, 2016. The role of Pakistan’s ISI has been suspected. While an initial probe suggested “fatigue of rail tracks” as the cause of the accident, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu shot off a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh alleging sabotage. In January, the Bihar Police arrested three persons — Moti Paswan, Uma Shanker Patel and Mukesh Yadav — for allegedly planting a bomb on the track at Ghorasan on October 1, 2016. The bomb was defused. Paswan later told Bihar Police that he had planted the explosives at the instance of his handlers in Nepal, who were working for the ISI. He had also said the ISI was involved in the Kanpur accident and he and two others had travelled to the accident site to place the IED. The Uttar Pradesh police, however, said no explosives were found on the rail track.
The claims of Paswan prompted Mr. Prabhu’s letter to Mr. Singh, alleging “sabotage” and “outsiders’ role” in at least six train accidents.
The probe into the Ghorasan incident, and the derailments at Kanpur and Kuneru on January 22 of the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneshwar Express, where over 40 people were killed, was handed over to the NIA. “We are about to file a charge sheet in the Ghorasan case. Paswan’s and others role has been established in this case but there is no proof to show that he planted a bomb at Kanpur, which caused the derailment. We are conducting a separate probe in the Kanpur incident but Paswan’s claims were all brag,” a senior NIA official told The Hindu .
The official said they were waiting for a forensic report as well as a report from the IIT Kanpur to ascertain whether the Kanpur and Kuneru rail accidents were the result of sabotage.
The arrests in the Ghorasan incident were made after a tip-off by Nepal Police, which arrested three persons — Braj Kishore Giri, Mojahir Ansari and Shambhu alias Laddu — while probing the murder of two Nepalese men — Dipak Ram and Arun.
The arrested men had allegedly said that the two were killed on the orders of Nepalese businessman Shamshul Hoda for failing to set off any explosions in India. Hoda was later arrested in February on his return from Dubai.
An NIA team then interrogated him in Nepal where he allegedly admitted that he was asked by a Pakistani, Shafi Sheikh, “create mayhem” in India. While Hoda confirmed that he had been asked by Sheikh to plant explosives at Ghorasan, he told the NIA team that he was unaware of any such plan for Kanpur and Kuneru railway derailments. While Hoda was not aware of the group Sheikh was affiliated to, NIA officials said their probe had found that he was working for Pakistan’s ISI and has been on the radar of intelligence agencies for pumping in fake currency in India via Nepal.
During an election rally in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh on February 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said the Kanpur accident was “a conspiracy and conspirators carried it out sitting across the border.” The Home Minister however, later told Parliament on March 22 that “Prime Minister did not directly mention ISI’s name in the Kanpur train derailment case.”
