Hyderabad: Amid growing suspicions of sabotage in the derailment of the Hirakhand Express in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday, India’s National Investigation Agency and state CID officials on Monday swung into action to probe the incident.
At least 41 people were killed and more than fifty injured in the crash.
A team of Andhra Pradesh CID, led by additional director-general of police Dwarka Tirumala Rao, visited the scene of the incident near Koneru Railway station in Vizianagaram district bordering Odisha.
The death toll mounted after two more bodies were recovered from one of the badly damaged coaches.
The train was travelling from Raigad to Bhuvaneshwar when it derailed around midnight on Saturday.
Railway authorities suspect foul play as the accident occurred in a Maoist affected region and a 38 centimetres gap was found at a place where two tracks join.
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, who visited the accident site on Saturday, said the culprits would not be spared.
“The cause of the accident will be probed. Those responsible for derailment will not be spared. Stringent action will be taken against who played with the lives of so many people,” he said.
Apart from the probe by the Commissioner of Railway Safety, the Union government has ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency and Andhra Pradesh government ordered the CID to investigate the reasons behind the mishap.
8 of the victims of the derailment belonged to Vizianagaram while most of others were from Odisha.
The investigations were being carried out from all the possible angles, said a senior official of the state CID.
Foul play was also suspected behind the other two train accidents recently in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
