80 killed, several injured as derailed Gyaneshwari express is hit by goods train in West Bengal; second big attack on civilians in just one month.
In a clear signal that they have expanded their ideological warfare to civil society, the Maoists on Friday targeted passengers of the Howrah-Kurla Gyaneshwari express by engineering an act of sabotage which claimed 80 lives besides leaving several injured.
This is the second big attack on a civilian target in a month after the Left insurgents blew up a private bus in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh on May 17, killing 36 persons.
The incident took place around 1.30am near Jhargram, a Maoist stronghold in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, when 13 coaches of the train derailed. The Maoist guerrillas had allegedly removed fishplates from the railway tracks which led to the accident. A goods train coming from the opposite direction rammed into the derailed coaches of Gyaneshwari express.
Since many bodies are yet to be recovered from the trampled coaches, the death toll could go beyond 100, sources said. The number of seriously injured passengers was 180. Incidentally, the Left rebels are observing a Black Week in the region. Maoist leaflets, claiming responsibility for the sabotage, were recovered near the spot.
Friday’s incident is a pointer to a change in strategy by the Maoists. Earlier, their targets were mainly government offices and people manning them; now they have moved on to targeting civilians. By April this year, they had killed 137 civilians. In May alone, the figure is likely to be close to 100.
Full-fledged rescue operations started almost four hours after the incident. Central and state disaster management teams rushed to the spot and started rescue operations aided by state police and combined forces deputed in the region. Indian Air Force choppers from Kalaikunda air base also joined the rescue operations. The injured were shifted to the railway hospital at Kharagpur.
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