Rail track blown up in West Singhbhum

Vijay Deo Jha/Parvinder Bhatia | Ranchi/Jamshedpur

RANCHI | Tuesday, February 9, 2010


On the second day of 72-hour bandh called by the CPI(Maoist), the suspected ultras blew up about three metres of railway track between Bhalulata and Jareikela in West Singhbhum under Chakradharpur Railway Division on the wee hours of Monday.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shibu Soren is all set to attend anti-Naxal meeting of Chief Ministers of four States scheduled to be held in Kolkata on Tuesday. The meeting has been called by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to fine-tune Operation Green Hunt.

Two bogies of a goods train derailed and down-line track linking Howrah to Mumbai route remained disrupted. However, no injury or casualty was reported. Maoists had used the can bomb to blow the track. The anti-bomb squad later recovered a can bomb planted on the up-line of the route.

Officials of Chakradharpur Railway Division said that several trains on the Howrah-Mumbai route were held up at different stations for several hours. It includes Howrah-Pune Azad Hind Express (down) at Rajkharsawan and Howrah-Korapur Sambleshwari Express at

Sinni for about 6 hours. Tata-Nagpur Passenger train was cancelled along with Tata-Badampahar; Tata-Bilaspur train was terminated at Rourkela. Several other trains plying on the Howrah-Mumbai route, including Howrah-Mumbai Geetanjali Express, ran late for about five hours.

Appeared resolute to give Naxalites befitting reply, Chief Minister Shibu Soren dropped thick indication of the plan of the State Government to raise special battalion to counter Naxal menace.

The Government has planned to raise a battalion of retired army personnel, including technicians, engineers and jawans to execute development work in Maoist-affected rural areas of the State.

Soren, who spoke on the sideline of the conclave of the Chief Ministers called to review internal security of the country, said that special battalion will be raised and the State police machinery will be strengthen.

Meanwhile, CPI(Maoist) leader and second in-command Koteswar Rao, alias Kishenji, who had asked Soren not to join February 9 meeting of the Chief Ministers of four States over anti-Naxal operation is reported to have said that Soren is not interested to hold negotiation.

"We are ready for that but he (Soren) is not willing to negotiate our genuine demands. There seems to be no point to hold discussion after Soren has made his mind known to join the Operation Green Hunt," he said.

The bandh has been called to protest the decision of the Central Government to launch Operation Green Hunt in the Naxal-hit States. Kishenji reworded what he had said earlier about the operation "an instrument to harass innocent people and tribals who are fighting for their right."