From rxpgnews.com
Six killed in Bengal train blast
By Indo Asian News Service,
Nov 21, 2006 - 5:08:53 AM
Jalpaiguri, Nov 20 (IANS) At least six people were killed and 41 injured Monday evening in a powerful explosion triggered by suspected terrorists in a train in West Bengal.
Inspector General of Police (North Bengal) K.L. Meena said six people died and 41 injured, many of them seriously, in the blast that ripped through the second compartment of the Haldibari-New Jalpaiguri passenger train at the Belakoba station in Jalpaiguri district.
Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia told IANS from Kolkata that some charred bodies were recovered from the ill-fated compartment while many injured were taken to the Jalpaiguri district hospital and other health centres.
Belakoba is 615 km north of Kolkata and 15 km from New Jalpaiguri.
The explosion occurred near the toilet of the coach at 6.30 p.m. The train carries coaches from Cooch Behar district's Haldibari to join with the Kolkata-bound Darjeeling Mail at the New Jalpaiguri station, the gateway to the northeast.
No outfit has claimed the responsibility for the blast that comes four months after terrorists targeted suburban trains in Mumbai, killing nearly 200 people July 11.
West Bengal Backward Class Minister and local legislator Jogesh Burman, who was to board the Darjeeling Mail from New Jalpaiguri, said militant organisation Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) was suspected to have triggered the blast.
The KLO, an extremist group, is said to be active in this area besides several Bodo groups and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is also said to be active there.
State Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said it was a powerful explosion and unprecedented in the state.
'We cannot say now who are behind it but it is definitely some terrorist outfit which triggered the blast,' Roy said in Kolkata.
In New Delhi, well-placed sources in the government said the banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is suspected to be behind the blast.
JMB, which has been operating camps in northern Bengal since 2002, might have joined forces with Indian militants belonging to the KLO and ULFA to carry out the explosion, they said.
The sources said the state police had been trying to hunt down eight JMB cadres who had crossed over earlier this year. But they proved elusive, crossing back into Bangladesh whenever under pressure.
Police suspected that the bombs were meant to explode at the New Jalpaiguri railway station, from where many people were likely to have boarded the coach in which the explosion occurred.
The train was late and so the blast occurred before it reached the station.
The ruling Left Front has called for protest rallies to decry the blast, its chairman Biman Bose said.
At least 10 people, including army soldiers, were killed and more than 80 were injured when a bomb exploded on June 22, 1999 at New Jalpaiguri station.
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