A day after the Home ministry dispatched a two-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) team to Bihar, the central counter terrorism agency has written a letter to the MHA seeking transfer of the Kanpur train accident case to itself.
The development assumes significance since the Bihar Police has claimed that the three people arrested recently have confirmed Pakistani spy agency ISI’s links in two train mishaps.
Two major train accidents near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh last year resulted in deaths of over 150 passengers and injuring to 200 others. According to Bihar Police, the mishaps were carried out on the instructions of Pakistan's spy agency ISI.
The ISI hand was exposed following the arrest of three persons – Umashankar Patel, Motilal Paswan and Mukesh Yadav – from Motihari in Bihar near Indo-Nepal border.
The arrested persons, police said, were working on the directions of an ISI agent, a Nepalese citizen based in Dubai. The trio have reportedly confessed to his involvement in planting explosives to derail the Indore-Patna Express and Ajmer-Sealdah Express trains near Kanpur.
The NIA has termed Bihar Police’s claims ‘curious’ and ‘unprecedented’.
“If it is true, then it would be unprecedented. We have not come across this sort of sabotage activity funded by ISI,” an NIA officer told The Indian Express.
“The NIA team will probe whether there was a larger conspiracy involving ISI agents based in Nepal and Dubai,” an official privy to the development said.
Meanwhile, the MHA has sought reports from the state government and central security agencies regarding the arrested persons and their disclosures.
