Jnaneswari sabotage arrest

Midnapore, Jan. 4: Sunil Mahato, one of the accused in the Jnaneswari Express sabotage, was arrested tonight.

According to Jhargram police chief Praveen Tripathi, Mahato’s name figures on chargesheet drawn up by the CBI, which is probing the sabotage suspected to have led to the train disaster on May 28 last year in which over 150 passengers died.

Mahato was picked up from the Manikpara market in Jhargram. “He was absconding. We worked on tipoffs and arrested him,” Tripathi said.

A resident of Kalojharia village near Manikpara, Mahto will be produced before the chief judicial magistrate’s court tomorrow. He is accused of supplying people and tools to open the pandrol clips on the tracks that caused many bogies of the Mumbai-bound express from Howrah to derail and come in the path of an oncoming goods train.

A Maoist armed squad member was killed and another injured during an encounter with joint forces near Lalgarh early this morning.

The Maoist killed has been identified as Saheb Kisku, 22, a resident of Lalgarh. The injured rebel, Sudam Soren, 25, has been admitted to the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital with bullet injuries in both legs.

The encounter took place following a tip-off from a rebel arrested on January 2. West Midnapore police chief said even though life had returned to normal in large parts of Lalgarh, there were still small Maoist squads in the jungles.