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The sabotage theory of Railway Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Bandaru Dattatraya to explain the derailment of the Howrah-Delhi Rajdhani Express on Monday does not have too many takers even in the capital.
Top railway ministry sources told rediff.com that the Delhi-Howrah route via Mughalsarai-Gaya-Dhanbad is the busiest in the country. So, they say, it is inconceivable that there would be time enough between the passage of two trains for anyone to remove the fish-plates, that too at night, peak time for rail traffic. In fact, the sources pointed out, a goods train had passed on the same track just minutes before the Rajdhani Express.
The sources said the frequency of trains on the route between sunset and 9am is 4.5 minutes in each direction, thanks to the movement of freight traffic between Kanpur and Howrah, which is the heaviest in the country.
Though the Maoist Communist Centre and the People's War group are active in the area, the heavy flow of continuous traffic on the route weakens the argument of the ministers that the accident could have been the result of sabotage.
"Prima facie it appears to be a case of sabotage as at the time of the derailment the train was running at 130 kmph. Had there been any suspicion over the condition of the track, speed restrictions would have been imposed," Kumar had told reporters at the site.
But even Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani said it appeared to be a simple accident case.
Trying to underplay this difference of opinion, Dattatraya later told a press conference that Advani did not have up-to-date information about the incident. But he repeatedly ignored queries about the frequency of rail traffic in the sector and whether any other train had passed on the same track just before the Rajdhani Express.
Dattatraya, however, said he was not contradicting Advani. "Telephonic messages had come to me that it was a case of sabotage because fish-plates were found beside the track at the accident site," he said. "We had not sent this report to the deputy prime minister. After I informed him, he instructed me to give him an update every two hours."
The Rajdhani Express Accident: The full coverage
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