Four feet of railway tracks were damaged in a bomb blast that derailed the Khushal Khan Khattak Express at 12:10 am on Wednesday, injuring the driver.
“It was a local remote-controlled bomb that weighed approximately seven to eight lbs and a remote and battery were found at the site,” said the Sukkur bomb disposal squad chief, Tahir.
Rail traffic for the Jacobabad-Dera Ghazi Khan section was stopped, after the damaged Peshawar-bound locomotive blocked the tracks near Unnar Wah at Thull. Police cordoned off the area.
A bomb-disposal squad from Shikarpur declared the area clear after nearly an hour of checking. Shikarpur SI Badar Shaikh was directed by the Sukkur authorities to visit the site and report back.
Relief trains were summoned from Sibi and Rohri, while repair work on the track was under way on Wednesday. The damaged train has been removed and the repairs will be done by Wednesday night, said Pakistan Railways Sukkur division superintendent, Roshan Ali Mangi.
He told The Express Tribune that he rushed to the scene to supervise relief work. “The Jacobabad-Dera Ghazi Khan section is not a busy section and only the Khushal Khan Khattak Express runs here,” he added.
Earlier, Pakistan Railway Drivers Association’s Muhammad Bux Khaki told The Express Tribune, “I fail to understand why only minor explosions of locally-made bombs are taking place on the tracks".
It is just to create fear and discourage people from travelling in trains,” he said.
According to him, the first explosions took place during Musharraf’s tenure and the transporter mafia was behind it. It is because of this that railway drivers feel that the agenda is not secessionist but “anti-railway”.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2011.
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