In an early breakthrough, West Bengal criminal investigation department (CID) has got definite clues about direct involvement of two top-rung leaders of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) in Friday’s Gyaneshwari Express sabotage in Jhargram that left over 140 people dead.
Highly placed CID sources told DNA that PCPA leaders Jayanta and Umakanto Mahato masterminded the massacre. Jayanta was an active Trinamool Congress worker before he joined PCPA.
Sources claimed PCPA members held a gun to the head of local railway contract workers and compelled them to remove the pandrol clips holding the tracks, leading to the ill-fated train derailing. They said the contract workers were picked up from their homes on Friday night at gunpoint by armed PCPA members led by Jayanta and Umakanto and forced to de-bolt the pandrol clips.
“De-bolting pandrol clips is a technical job which cannot be done without proper training. They also used gas cutters to breach tracks in the area. All the contract workers are residents of the Maoist-dominated Khalshiuli and Barmol villages nearby,” the sources claimed.
They said after interrogating some locals, CID sleuths had gathered that a white Tata Sumo was seen making repeated rounds of the massacre site early morning on Saturday.
DGP Bhupinder Singh confirmed that investigators had got specific clues about the involvement of Maoists and PCPA in the massacre. “They forced some locals to quickly de-bolt the pandrol clips, codenamed jalebi by Maoists. We are also probing the role of some railway linesmen in the massacre,” he said.
PCPA spokesman Asit Mahato admitted both Jayanta and Umakanto were its active members. “However, we do not know where they are now. We are unable to contact them,” he said.
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