Maoists damage rail tracks in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR - Maoists targeted railway tracks in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region for the second consecutive day Tuesday, causing the derailment of two engines and disrupting train services, police said.

“Maoists damaged rail tracks up to 52 metres in a forested pocket in Dantewada district near Bhansi railway station where two engines derailed,” Gaur Gopal, in charge of Bhansi police station, told IANS over phone.

The accident site is located some 420 km south of capital Raipur, and the derailment had halted rail services under the Waltair division of the East Coast Railway.

Gopal added that police officials were assisting rail authorities to clear the tracks and that the work would be completed by Wednesday afternoon.

Maoists had damaged rail tracks in Dantewada Monday as well, derailing an engine and six wagons of a goods train carrying iron ore of NMDC Ltd, India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter in the public sector that has several mines at Bailadila hills in Dantewada district.

Officials at the police headquarters here said the security of railway tracks in jungle areas of Dantewada has been stepped up after tracks were damaged on two successive days in the district. Maoists had killed 75 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers and a state policeman in April this year in Dantewada in the worst ever attack in the four-decade-old insurgency.