Naxals kill people, leaders blame one another

New Delhi: The latest Naxal attack in which at least 80 people were killed and over 200 others injured early on Friday when the Howrah-Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express was derailed has stunned the entire nation.

The train was running between Khemasoli and Sardiya stations, about 150 km from Kolkata when five of the 13 derailed coaches of the train fell on an adjacent track and were hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction, increasing the number of people killed and injured.

The deadly attack comes just a day before Kolkata municipal elections. With West Bengal polls just a year away, the attack on a train has begun acquiring political colour with the Left parties questioning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacking Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, calling her the absent minister.

"We expect a more positive response, and a more present Railway Minister in Delhi," said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi.

Mamata claimed that the train derailed because of a bomb blast even as the Centre insisted that it was an act of sabotage.

Till just a day back the Congress and Trinamool Congress, allies at the Centre, were hitting out at each other in the heat of the Kolkata municipal elections. While Mamata accused Congress of betrayal, Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said that the she could not take his party for granted.

Reacting to Friday's Naxal attack Mukherjee was more guarded but almost ruled out Mamata's bomb blast theory.

"We condemn this senseless violence. We do not know the exact reason of it yet, whether there was any sabotage or explosion because till now, as I have heard, there is no evidence," said Mukherjee.

Mamata, who visited the derailment site, passed the buck by saying law and order was a state subject and demanded an investigation by a central Government team into the tragedy. But the Left hit back saying railway safety is her prime responsibility.

The Left, Mamata's enemy No.1 and having already accused of going soft on the Naxals in the past, also insisted that the Centre needed to do more to control the Naxal menace.

"They (Naxals) started from Andhra then came to Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Now they are trying to enter our territory. We are opposing them, politically and administratively opposing them," said West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

"The Prime Minister must personally intervene to ensure that there is proper coordination between Railways, its protection force and the security agencies," added Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury.

By Friday evening, the West Bengal Chief Secretary Arthendu Sen made it clear that it was the Naxals who were involved in the derailment. Sen blamed the Lalgarh-based People's Committee Against Police Atrocities backed by the Naxals for the sabotage and said that there was no evidence of a blast at the site.

"We have recovered some posters from the place. It points very clearly to the involvement of the Maoists (Naxals) of the area," claimed Sen.

But Mamata's priorities are clear. The Left Front has to be ousted from West Bengal and she was happy to align with the Congress at the Centre to use the alliance as an influence over the Buddhadeb government.

Friday's attack on the Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express is the third major Naxal attack in Bengal alone, and each time as lives are lost politics over it grows louder. It is likely to get shriller as Bengal elections come closer.

With Bengal elections not too far away even a tragedy like the Gyaneshwari Express derailment is fast acquiring political colour. The bomb blast versus sabotage theory is just one manifestation of this.

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