Arrested ISI suspects quizzed by RAW, NIA sleuths

The three suspected ISI agents, arrested by Bihar Police, were on Wednesday questioned by sleuths of RAW, NIA and Railway Police in connection with the November 20 Indore-Patna Express mishap in Kanpur that claimed 150 lives and other train accidents. The trio had provided some “positive lead” about the Indore-Patna Express derailment in Kanpur on November 20 last year during questioning yesterday after their arrest from Adapur police station area on Tuesday. After the central agencies were alerted about these leads, teams of NIA, RAW, Railway Police and UP and Bihar ATS came here to extract more details from Moti Paswan, Uma Shankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav to ascertain ISI role in triggering train mishaps in India. Meanwhile, a court of Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), Raxual, S K Mishra sent the trio to six days in police remand. Superintendent of Police of East Champaran district Jitendra Rana told reporters that they sought remand of the three in connection with murder of two residents of the district — Arun Ram and Deepak Ram — in Nepal on December 28 last year for failing to trigger blast on the track in Ghorasahan in East Champaran district on October 1, 2016. The district police would intensively question the trio for details regarding Ghorasahan incident and killing of the duo in connection with which a case was registered with Adapur police station of the district. Rana said NIA, RAW, ATS and Railway Police quizzed the three in connection with Indore-Patna Express mishap. Paswan, Shankar and Yadav had allegedly confessed to having worked for a Nepalese contact suspected to be connected to ISI to target the railways. They had revealed that they were paid Rs three lakh by a Nepali man Brajesh Giri, who allegedly had connections with Shamsul Hoda of Dubai who had links with the ISI. The money was paid to them to plant a bomb on the railway tracks at Ghorasan in East Champaran district, bordering Nepal, on October 1 last year, Rana said. Efforts are on to arrest, in this connection, two others identified as Gajendra Sharma and Rakesh Yadav, who are “hiding” in East Champaran, the SP had said. While three persons were arrested from East Champaran district, three others were captured earlier at Tailaya in Nepal for targeting railways on behalf of suspected terror elements in India, the SP said. East Champaran is a district bordering Nepal. Indian Mujahideen chief Yasin Bhatkal was arrested from Raxaul in the district in August 2013.