Three persons were arrested here on Tuesday on the charge of placing a boulder on the railway track between Uthukuli and Vijayamangalam stations on Sunday.
Railway Police sources told reporters that the three arrested — K. Mani (34), S. Kathiravan alias Rangasamy (35) and R. Manickam (50), all residents of Uthukuli — belonged to a lesser-known outfit named Arundhathiyar Viduthalai Iyyakkam.
“Of them, Rangasamy is the State president of the group and Manickam its state organiser. The other accused is a sympathiser of the outfit,” sources said.
The accused were later remanded to judicial custody by a judicial magistrate court in Coimbatore under Sections 150 (A) (attempting to wreck train) and 153 (threatening the safety of train passengers) of Railway Act and Tamil Nadu Public Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act, 1992.
The investigation was carried out based on a complaint reported by the loco pilot of the Kanyakumari-Mumbai Express train, which hit the stone placed by them along the track at 8 p.m. on Sunday.
Subsequently, the loco pilot of the Patna-Ernakulam train coming in the opposite direction, who heard the message on a walkie-talkie, stopped the train to confirm that the object was a stone.
