Tamil rebels probed after train blast

Press, 17 March 1987, Page 8

Tamil rebels probed after train blast

NZPA-Reuter Madras The Indian police were investigating Tamil extremists yesterday after their literature was found at the spot where bombs derailed an express train and killed at least 22 people. Two. powerful remotecontrolled bombs exploded within seconds of each other on Sunday throwing the engine and eight carriages of the Rockfort Express from a railway bridge into a dry river bed in Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state.

Onlookers said the site was littered with mangled bodies and debris. Res-

cuers struggled by torchlight through the night to cut open the crushed cars to free the trapped.

The State-run All-India Radio said 22 people were killed, the Press Trust of India said 25 had died, and one onlooker told Reuters as many as 60 were feared dead. At least 60 and as many as 200 people were feared injured. Police Director-General, K. Ravindran, told reporters at the scene 60km from Tirchirapalli that important clues had been i recovered and he expected some arrests in a day or so.

Onlookers said a poster, inscribed “When you are giving so much support to the Palestine liberation movement, why not support the Sri Lankan Tamils as well?” was found at the site.

Sri Lankan guerrillas are fighting to establish an independent Tamil homeland on the island.

PTI said the police had recovered pamphlets linked to a Tamil Nadubased extremist group connected with Sri Lankan rebels and Sikh separatists in the northern Indian state of Punjab. The police found that a battery and two 100-metre lengths of wire indicating

a remote-controlled detonator were used. Three express trains crossed the bridge just before the Rockfort Express was derailed.

The Southern Railways general manager, K. V. Balakrishnan, who was travelling in the last coach, called the incident a “clear case of sabotage”. Railway officials said an Indian junior Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, had been expected to ride the Rockfort Express but cancelled at the last minute. Mr Chidambaram, a native of Tamil Nadu, has special responsibility for internal security. Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu state, serves as headquarters for the quarrelling guerrilla organisations which have been blamed by the police for several violent incidents recently in the state of 50 million people.