Ctg rail link restored after sabotage

Chittagong rail link with rest of Bangladesh was restored Friday morning after a standstill for 11 hours even as railway authorities claimed miscreants had removed fishplates causing derailment of six coaches of Mahanagar Godhuli train in Feni.

Feni Rail Station Manager Mahbubur Rahman told bdnews24.com some miscreants had dislodged fishplate clips, leading to the accident near the railway station in Khajuria area at 11:00pm Thursday night.

No casualties or injuries were reported in the accident.

Rail communication on the route remained paralysed until necessary repairs were completed around 10:15am Friday, East Zone Railway Traffic official Zakir Hossain said.

Rescue trains from Chittagong and Laksham stations had been rushed to the site, he said.

Chittagong Railway Station Manager Shamsul Alam also expressed apprehensions of sabotage by miscreants.

Due to the disruption, Turna Nishita and Paharika Express trains from Dhaka and Sylhet could not reach Chittagong in time. Mahanagar Probhati and Paharika Express, scheduled to leave Chittagong in the morning, had to be delayed.

On Thursday, Jamaat-e-Islami supporters set rail tracks on fire in Sitakunda, hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-1 gave death sentence to party leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee. The incident had severed Chittagong rail link with rest of the country for two hours.

A slipper was also found removed from the tracks in Aditmari of Lalmonirhat Thursday night. However, any mishaps or delays in trains were not reported as the authorities quickly fixed the problem, said Lalmonirhat Station Master Mojibor Rahman