The suspects after their arrest in Motihari on Tuesday. PTI The suspects after their arrest in Motihari on Tuesday. PTI

THE THREE men arrested by Bihar Police on Tuesday have reportedly confessed to their involvement in the Kanpur train mishap in November that killed more than 140 people, according to investigators. The three were arrested on charges of a double-murder in the district, and on suspicion over their role in an attempt to blow up a railway track at Ghorasahan, in East Champaran district of Bihar in October last year.

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They confessed to alleged involvement in the Kanpur train accident during subsequent interrogation, officers said. A local court on Wednesday sent the trio — Moti Paswan, Dayashanker Patel and Mukesh Yadav — to six days’ custody of East Champaran police. The three, now undergoing joint interrogation by officers of Bihar Police, Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Delhi Police’s Special Cell, are suspected to be part of a Nepal-based international gang with alleged links to Pakistan’s ISI.

They have told interrogators that they, and other gang members, had been “assigned to blow up the railway track” near Kanpur.

The Indore-Patna Express derailed in Kanpur Dehat in the early hours of November 20.

Also Read | Railway officers say ISI link unlikely, NIA calls police claim ‘curious’

According to reports from Delhi, a two-member National Investigation Agency (NIA) team has reached Bihar, and will interrogate the accused.

Sources in UP ATS said that Moti Paswan yesterday told Bihar police that two Delhi men named Zubair and Ziaul had approached him and called him to Kanpur Dehat before the accident, where they met him with four other local youths. Sources said Paswan has not yet stated when they met, or what transpired in the meeting —- he has reportedly claimed that Ziaul and Zubair took him near the tracks and “did something” there.

He has so far claimed that he does not know more details since he, along with the other locals, were not taken too close to the tracks.

Based on information from Bihar police, the Special Cell on Tuesday arrested two men from Batla House area of southeast Delhi and verified their identity as Ziaul and Zubair by sending their photographs to Bihar.

According to the ATS source, cellphones seized from Zubair and Ziaul were scanned for call details.

The location of the phones were not traced in or around Kanpur Dehat on the day of the train accident, the source added.

Bihar police officials said Paswan, Patel and Yadav —- all three come from Motihari —- were arrested primarily in connection with the murder of locals Anil Ram and Deepak Ram. The police later found that the deceased were members of a Nepal gang with ISI links, and that they had been killed allegedly for their failure to blow up the tracks at Ghodasahan on October 1 last year.

Confirming that the arrested trio are undergoing joint interrogation, Raxaul Deputy SP Rakesh Kumar said, “They have confessed to their involvement in the Kanpur accident.” He said Nepal police’s cooperation will also be sought, as the Nepal gang’s leader, Brajkishore Giri, and two others have been arrested there.

UP ATS Deputy DSP Manish Sonkar told reporters that they will take the three accused on transit remand to Kanpur to reconstruct the railway tragedy.

‘Nepal man in Dubai hired ex-Maoist Moti Paswan’

A Dubai-based Nepali citizen named Shamshul Hoda, operating with his Nepal conduit Brajkishore Giri, had employed Moti Paswan and others suspected to have been involved in what the police claim was a sabotage to derail Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur, according to a police source. “Giri had a specific mandate —- to employ Indian and Nepali Hindus with criminal background, and even ex-Maoists. Moti Paswan is a former Maoist; he claims that his mobile phone was switched off during the Kanpur plan,” the source said.

“The Kanpur blast theory can gain ground only if some corroborative evidence are found, and some other gang members reveal their involvement.” The source said it may have been an ISI ploy to engage a Nepali Muslim to confuse Indian investigating agencies.

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