Indian Railways have pointed out that there have been 18 Derailment Attempts across the country to blow up trains since August, and two of the attempts happened on Sunday in Kanpur and Ajmer. From last June 2023 to the present time, there are 24 cases where authorities discovered different sorts of objects set on rail tracks, including LPG cylinders, bicycles, iron rods, and cement blocks, to mention but a few. According to the Railways report, 18 of the Derailment Attempts were related to August, while the remaining three are related to September.
A majority of these incidents were reported from UP, while the rest were reported from Punjab, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Mp, Odisha, and Telangana. One of the largest train accidents that occurred in August, 20 coaches of the Sabarmati Express passenger train on its route to Ahmedabad, met an unfortunate end after a few of the coaches derailed near Govindpuri station in Kanpur after the engine hit what was described as an ‘object put on the rail’. All the passengers were successfully evacuated, and there were no reported injuries or fatalities.
Previous Derailment Attempts in Odisha and Rajasthan
On the other hand, on Sunday there were two successive derailment attempts. In Kanpur, one of the passenger trains, namely Kalindi Express, suddenly came to an emergency stop due to a collision with an LPG cylinder placed on the rail track. The loco pilot had applied the brakes after noticing the cylinder on the track as well as other objects that aroused much suspicion, including a bottle of petrol and match boxes. An FIR was filed with the Kanpur Police; however, six persons have been arrested till now.
Another similar incident occurred in the later part of the night where a freight train from Rajasthan’s Ajmer knocked off two cement blocks of 70 kg each placed on the tracks. However, the train could go on moving forward, crashing through the blocks without being stopped by them in any way. In a similar incident on September 4, the loco pilots of a tower wagon found a big stone lying on the rail track in Solapur district of Maharashtra and stopped the train just before it could run over it.
The officials of the railway authority reported the matter to the police, who then began an investigation of the case. In the year 2023, two attempts of derailing were made in the months of June and October at Odisha and Rajasthan. In Bhadrak district of Odisha, a wooden log was put at a railway crossing, and in Chittorgarh of Rajasthan, a stone was laid on a track.
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