Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday during the question hour in the Lok Sabha informed that there were as many as 18 sabotage attempts against railways in the last 40 days.
These attempts were made by placing boulders, concrete slab, stone slab or rail pieces on tracks to derail trains, but were foiled due to the vigilance of railway officials. He also mentioned that there were also as many as seven blast attempts carried out to sabotage the rail operations
Just on the night of 6th February, a major accident was averted between the Diva and Panvel stretch near Mumbai after the loco pilot of the Pune-Santragachi express pressed the emergency break in time when the train encountered a 5 foot piece of rail placed horizontally over the tracks.
We had reported earlier as to how an ISI hand has been long suspected in the sabotage attempts, some of which were carried close to dates and venues of Narendra Modi’s rallies, and whether these were an attempt to hit back at the India for ruining its (ISI’s) counterfeit note business post demonetisation.
Though the elaborate conspiracy does seem to be slowly unraveling as one of the prime suspects in the Kanpur train derailment Shamshul Hoda was arrested a couple of days back by Nepal police.
Hoda, an ISI agent, was reportedly in direct contact with Shafi Shaikh, a Pakistani national and the alleged mastermind behind the sabotage operations. Shaikh is also believed to be the Kingpin of the Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN) operations carried out from Pakistan.