Surat: Amid a series of cases involving attempts to derail trains, a group of railway employees in Gujarat's Surat tried to use the situation to their advantage by damaging a rail track and then alerting authorities about a "sabotage attempt" to take credit for averting a possible tragedy.
The three employees arrested in Surat on Monday were identified as Subhash Poddar (39), Manish Mistry (28) and Shubham Jaiswal (26). All three were working as trackmen in the railways' maintenance department, Superintendent of Police Hotesh Joysar said.
Giving more information about their motive and modus operandi, the police officer said Poddar and others, while on inspection between Kosamba and Kim stations, had alerted the railway administration at 5:30 am on Saturday about "miscreants" removing elastic clips and two fishplates from one set of tracks and placing them on another to derail a train.
"On 21st September (Saturday), an attempt was made to derail a train near Kim railway station. Sixteen teams of police were formed to investigate the case, and drones were also used. We spoke to people, and the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), and other agencies were part of the probe," the SP said.
"When interrogated, accused Subash, Manish and Shubham confessed that to become famous, to make money, and to make sure night patrolling continues, they did this," he added.
"A probe began after a case for criminal conspiracy was registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Kim police station against unidentified persons. We found that the trio, while on night patrol, had sent a video of the compromised track to their seniors in order to alert them. Railway officials told us a train passed on the route just before the trio noticed the tampering," the SP said.
"The time interval of the tampering being discovered and the passing of the train was too less and it was not possible to remove the clips and plates in such a short time. We checked the mobile phones of the trio and found videos of tampered tracks shot at different intervals starting from 2:56 am to 4:57 am. Mistry had also deleted photos he had taken," he said.
This established that the photos and videos were taken much before they called the officials at around 5:30 am to report about sabotage, Joysar said, adding the three confessed to the act after intense questioning.
"They indulged in this act to ensure they would be felicitated and be deployed on night duty further, which would give them time to spend with the family during the day. It was Poddar who came up with this idea because their night duty for the monsoon was about to come to an end," the SP said. He said the trio, for each night duty session, would get an off the following day and they wanted this process to continue, he added. (With agency inputs)
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