Three persons arrested by the Bihar police have claimed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the recent train accident in Kanpur and the bomb that failed to explode on a railway track in Ghorasahan in East Champaran district of the State.

Fifteen coaches of the Ajmer-Sealdah Express (no.12987) derailed near Rura, around 70 kilometres from Kanpur, on December 28. Though there were no deaths, 44 persons were injured in the accident.

Earlier, on November 20, Indore-Patna Express train derailed near Kanpur, killing over a hundred passengers and injuring many more. On October 1, a powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was detected on a railway track in Ghorasahan and it was safely defused by the police.

“In the course of our investigation into the Ghorasahan IED, we arrested three persons who confessed to their involvement. They said they were acting on the instructions of people based in foreign countries… It’s the subject of an investigation, but they have said they had links with Pakistan’s ISI,” Jitendra Rana, Superintendent of Police, East Champaran, told journalists in Motihari, district headquarters, on Tuesday.

Agencies informed

Mr. Rana said intelligence agencies had been informed about the arrests and the foreign links of the accused.

The arrested persons were identified as Uma Shankar Prasad, Moti Paswan and Mukesh Yadav. Moti Paswan, police said, claimed that the ISI was involved in the Kanpur rail accident and that he and some others from Kanpur had executed the job.

Two of his accomplices, Zubair and Ziyaullah, had already been arrested in Delhi. “Moti Paswan identified both of them from photographs shown to him,” said Mr Rana.

‘₹3 lakh to plant bomb’

Moti Paswan told the police one Braj Kishore Giri, who was recently arrested in Nepal, had given ₹3 lakh to Dipak Ram and Arun of Adapur village to plant a powerful IED on a railway track in Ghorasahan. “When they failed to trigger the explosion, Giri killed them in the jungles of Nepal,” he said.

Information had also come from the Nepal police that the ISI had paid Braj Kishore Giri ₹30 lakh to blow up railway tracks in India, police said.

“They may also have been involved in the Indore-Patna Express accident on November 20 last year. But this can only be confirmed after a thorough investigation,” said Mr. Rana.