Click to play videoNew Delhi: In a suspected terror attack, two bogies of Samjhauta Express caught fire near Panipat in Haryana at around 2315 hrs IST on Sunday, leaving 66 people dead and over 50 injured.
The fire broke out in the train at Shiva Village under Chandni Bagh police station in Panipat district, about 100 kilometre from national capital Delhi. The train, also called Attari Express, was going from Delhi to Lahore via Attari in Punjab.
The injured have been admitted to a nearby hospital. Initial investigations reveal that cause of fire could be explosives. Security personnel later recovered three live bombs from the train and defused them.
“We are conducting an enquiry into the incident. Arms and explosives have been recovered from the site. Unwanted elements are trying to disturb the peace process between the two nations. I am rushing to the spot,” Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad said.
The bi-weekly train had left Old Delhi Railway Station at 2240 hrs IST on Sunday. The fire was noticed in the last two bogies of the train when it reached the railway crossing near the village. Eyewitnesses say they heard an explosion before the train caught fire.
Rescue operations
Soon after the incident, police launched rescue operations along with the Railway police personnel and bomb disposal squad.
The charred bogies were taken out after the fire was extinguished by fire tenders, which came from Panipat and the nearby Indian Oil refinery.
After the separation of the two bogies, the train left for its destination at about 0300 hrs IST.
Planned terror attack?
Northern Railway General Manger V N Mathur, who reached the spot from Delhi, said two suitcases were recovered from the spot - one from the rail track and one from the train.
“This looks like a case of sabotage. Two suitcases with live bombs have been recovered from the site,” he told CNN-IBN.
Both the suitcases contained Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) - one of them also had incendiary material, either kerosene or petrol, he said.
THE HISTORY OF ATTARI EXPRESS |
| - The Attari Express is a bi-weekly train, which runs between Attari and Delhi twice a week. It leaves Delhi on Sundays and Wednesdays and departs from Attari on Mondays and Thursdays. |
| - On the Pakistan side, it's called the Samjhauta Express, which runs between Lahore and Attari. It leaves Lahore on Mondays and Thursdays and leaves Attari on Mondays and Thursdays. |
| - Until the reopening of Thar Express, this was the only rail connection between the two countries. |
| - The train was originally started on July 22, 1976 following the Shimla Agreement and ran between Amritsar and Lahore, a distance of about 42 km, when it was called Samjhauta Express. |
| - It was a daily train when the service started, and changed to a bi-weekly schedule in 1994. |
| - Following disturbances in Punjab in the late '80s, Indian Railways decided to terminate the service at Attari, where customs and immigration clearances take place due to security reasons.. |
| - On April 14, 2000 in an agreement between Indian Railways and Pakistan Railways, the distance was revised to cover just under 3 km, possibly the shortest route covered by any train in the world. |
| - The train's first break of service was when it was discontinued on January 1, 2002 in the wake of terrorist attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. The service resumed on January 15, 2004. |
| - The border crossing takes place between Wagah in Pakistan and Attari in India. Originally, this was a through service with the same rake going all the way between the termini; later the Pakistani rake stopped at Attari at which point passengers had to change trains. |
He added that a forensic team of the Haryana government and an enquiry panel of the Northern Railways have reached the site.
He said he had talked to the gateman near Deewana station, who told him that he had heard two “distinct explosions".
However, Union Home Secretary V K Duggal did not confirm that the explosion was set off by IEDs in two coaches. “There was no specific information about the incident prior to the mishap. We are just leaving for the site and we will know details of the incident only there."
"Sabotage cannot be ruled out, but I have not received any such report. If it was an IED blast, the loss would have been bigger. So it does not look like it was an IED blast,” said Duggal.
Officials visit blast site
Lalu Prasad and Home Minister Shivraj Patil are on their way to Panipat, accompanied by Duggal and Director General of National Security Guards J K Dutt, official sources said.
A team of NSG bomb squad was also being dispatched to the site along with personnel of National Disaster Response Force.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi expressed condolences to the families of the victims of the fire.
Impact on Indo-Pak relations
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said visas for the relatives of Pakistani victims will be granted immediately. “India is doing everything to help Pakistan in this tragedy. We brought the victims to the Safdargjung Hospital. But it’s too early to say if the incident was an act of terrorism,” he added.
Pakistan is likely to issue a statement later in the day condemning the incident. It sees the blast as a terrorist act, meant to disrupt the Indo-Pak peace process.
But the country reassured India that the peace process is on track and will not be disrupted by terrorist incidents. The Pakistani High Commission will send an official to the blast site shortly.
However, the timing of the Samjhauta blasts is significant as Pakistan Foreign Affairs Minister Khursheed Mahmoud Kasuri is scheduled to visit India in a couple of days.
Moreover, India recently asked Pakistan to relax visa restrictions and now it remains to be seen whether Pakistan will fall in sync with India's demands.
The following is the list of the injured in the Delhi-Attari special train blast in Haryana:
Shammi Shafique(9) Delhi, Abdul Khayyam (56), Quamaruddin (50), Ashok (21) Sialkot Ramesh (40), Sialkot Rana Shaukat (40), Pakistan Harish (15), Ms Ruksana (40), Ashima (1), Nadeem (11), Mirpur Mohammad Shakeel (21), Mirpur Mohammad Zakir (38), two RPF personnel –Tarsem and Kashmir Singh — were also injured in the incident.
Six of the passengers, including five Pakistanis, were in a critical condition, hospital officials said.
The patients who were in critical condition were identified as:
Harish (15), Samim (14), Abdul Kayum (56) all from Arongi town near Karachi, and Ramesh Kumar (40), Ashok Kumar, both from Sialkote and Mohd Zakir (32) from Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh.
The six have been admitted in the ICU of the hospital. The other injured persons admitted in the hospital are Nadim (10), Shaukat Ali (40), M Sakil (25), Ruksana (40) and Aksa (8). They are undergoing treatment in the burns ward of the hospital.
The Railways has set up helpline numbers. They are:
New Delhi Railway Station : 1072-011-23342954, 23341074,
Railway Headquarter : 011-23389319, 23389853, 23385106
Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station : 011-24355954,
Ambala : 1072, 0171-2610329,2611072,
Amritsar : 0183-2564485, 2223171,
Ludhiana : 0161 -2760006,
Jalandhar : 0181 -2223504,
Number of the site : 0180-2397823, 6450342
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.