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| People walk with their belongings as they arrive by train from Howrah in West Bengal at Guwahati railway station in Guwahati yesterday |
Two more bodies were found on the tracks later with police suspecting they were also thrown out of a moving train.
The first two bodies were found on Saturday night at a place between Belakoba and Raninagar stations of North East Frontier Railway (NEF). While one of the victims died on the spot, the other succumbed in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri where he and nine others injured, four of them seriously, had been admitted for treatment. One of the victims has been identified.
NEF Railway spokesman S Hajong said that 11 people were thrown out of the train shortly after it left New Jalpaiguri station.
Eight of the injured hail from Assam, and one is from Bengal’s Malda district.
Railway sources said the train was carrying a large number of people from Assam who had left Bangalore following rumours that people from the northeast could be targeted. One of the injured said that after the train left New Jalpaiguri, a group of unidentified men robbed passengers of their belongings and then threw them out after the train crossed Belakoba.
Two other bodies were found on the railway track at Falakata in Jalpaiguri yesterday morning, government railway police sources said. One body has been identified.
“They may have been thrown out of the train. We are not ruling that out. Investigation is on,” said a GRP officer. Train movement was disrupted for some time as the locals demonstrated on the track with the dead bodies.
Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday expressed her “deep pain” at the ethnic violence in Assam and condemned the subsequent mistreatment faced by people from northeast in some parts of the country.
Speaking at the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavna Award Function in the capital, Gandhi said the biggest challenge in a society came from people who were enemies of social unity.
“Whatever happened in Assam, it is very painful and a matter of concern. The guilty should face legal action soon,” she said.
Gandhi also expressed concern over people from northeast leaving Bangalore and some other cities in large numbers due to rumours about their safety. “The kind of treatment innocent people from northeast had to face, all of us should condemn it strongly,” she said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Rajiv Gandhi wanted to build a strong and prosperous India. “He knew that India can make progress only if all countrymen live in peace, tolerance and harmony with each other,” he said.
Meanwhile, a day after the government blamed Pakistan for rumours and SMSes that forced thousands of northeast citizens to flee other states, the BJP yesterday slammed the government for intelligence failure. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha also slammed Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who has claimed he always suspected foreign hand in the incidents. Sinha questioned Gogoi’s inaction. “The Assam chief minister said he always felt there is Pakistan’s hand in the incidents. A Congress chief minister is saying this, it’s clearly an intelligence failure,” Sinha said.
Govt holds talks with Pakistan minister
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde yesterday raised the issue of misuse of social media sites by Pakistan-based elements in whipping up communal sentiments with his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik and sought his co-operation in checking and neutralising such forces. According to home ministry officials, Shinde told Malik, who called him up, that elements based in Pakistan used such sites to circulate false pictures and stories so as to whip up communal sentiments in India. This was the first direct contact between the two ministers after Shinde took office. Malik spoke about the pending issues and reiterated his commitment to bringing the masterminds and perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack to justice.