Bihar police on Tuesday claimed to have unearthed a suspected Inter-Services Link (ISI) link to target the railways with arrest of three people in East Champaran district of the state bordering Nepal. The suspects are being interrogated to find out if they had a role in the derailment at Kanpur Dehat in November and elsewhere.
Police claimed the trio had confessed to having worked for a Nepalese contact suspected to be connected to Pakistan's ISI to target the railways.
District Superintendent of Police Jitendra Rana told reporters in Motihari that Moti Paswan, Uma Shankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav were arrested from Adapur Police Station area of the district.
The three are "professional criminals" allegedly involved in more than a dozen criminal cases, he said.
During interrogation, police claimed they confessed to having been paid Rs 3 lakh by a Nepali citizen, identified as Brajesh Giri, allegedly connected with the ISI for planting a bomb on railway tracks at Ghorasahan in East Champaran district on 1 October last year to cause an accident.
Fortunately, the bomb was detected with the help of villagers at Ghorasan and defused which prevented the sinister designs of the terror elements.Jitendra Rana, District Superintendent of Police
While three people were arrested from East Champaran district, three others have been nabbed at Tailaya in Nepal for targeting railways on behalf of suspected terror elements in this country, he said.
Efforts are on to arrest in this connection two others, identified as Gajendra Sharma and Rakesh Yadav, who are "hiding" in East Champaran area, he said.
Rana said the anti-terrorism squad and other security agencies have been informed about the confession made by the three men who are being interrogated for more details to ascertain if the gang had any role in train accidents in Kanpur and elsewhere. 150 people were killed in the derailment of Indore-Patna Express at Kanpur Dehat in November last year.
East Champaran is a district bordering Nepal and Indian Mujahideen chief Yasin Bhatkal was arrested from Raxaul in the district in August 2013.
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