Kanpur Train Derailment Case Likely to be Transferred to NIA

Rescue and relief work in progress after the Indore-Patna express derailed near Kanpur Dehat on Nov 20, 2016. (PTI Photo)

New Delhi: The Kanpur train derailment case might be transfered to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday, sources said.

The move follows the NIA’s request to the Union Home Ministry to transfer the case.

Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, was suspected to be behind the train disaster in Kanpur after police arrested three people from Bihar’s Motihari district on Tuesday who they claimed were working for the ISI to target Indian railways.

The ISI link to the November 20, 2016, train disaster, in which 150 people were killed, was being suspected after the interrogation of the trio, police said.

During interrogation, they provided some “positive lead” about the Indore-Patna Express derailment in Kanpur, Motihari District Superintendent of Police, Jitendra Rana, said.The ATS and central agencies have been apprised of it for comprehensive investigation, he added.

Moti Paswan, Uma Shankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav confessed to having worked for a Nepalese contact suspected to be connected to ISI to target the railways, Rana told reporters. The three are “professional criminals” involved in more than a dozen criminal cases.

On Wednesday, an NIA team reached Bihar’s Motihari district to investigate the alleged role of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence behind last November’s Indore-Patna Express train derailment near Kanpur that claimed over 100 lives.

(With agency inputs)