Train sabotage: Bapi Mahato brought to West Bengal

KOLKATA/RANCHI - Pro-Maoist activist Bapi Mahato, prime accused in last month’s Gyaneshwari Express sabotage in which 148 people were killed, was brought to West Bengal’s West Midnapore district Monday, a day after his arrest in Jharkhand.

Mahato, a prominent leader of the militant wing of tribal body Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), was flown by chopper on a day’s transit remand due to security considerations, police said.

A senior state police officer, who led the team that went to Jharkhand to bring back Bapi Mahato, said: “He will be interrogated at the Midnapore police lines by senior officers before being handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths.”

Bapi Mahato was the main organiser of the PCAPA’S Sidhu Kanu Gana Militia in the Guimara-Lalgeria panchayat area under Jhargram police station. He will be presented in the additional chief judicial magistrate court in Jhargram Tuesday, he said.

The officer also claimed that Bapi Mahato, a resident of Rasua village, revealed the names of others involved in the crime and the entire sequence of events leading to the May 28 train derailment.

“During interrogation, he admitted to have plotted the crime along with Tapan Mahato, another local member of the PCAPAs’ militant wing,” said a officer in condition of anonymity.

The officer said Bapi Mahato disclosed the names of eight PCAPA members who had committed the crime. “The plot was hatched to draw the attention of reporters, so that they could complain about their sufferings due to the high-handedness of the security personnel in their villages - Manikpara, Akrashole, Indrabati and Murabani,” said the officer.

“The detailed operation was planned by Tapan Mahato and Bapi Mahato himself May 27 and later they briefed other senior leaders of PCAPA including Asit Mahato, the spokesperson of the PCAPA and other senior members like Umakanto Mahato and Khogen Mahato. Many villagers were forcibly taken to commit the sabotage,” police sources said.

Bapi Mahato told investigators that a railway gangman Dayaram Mahato was forcibly taken to the derailment site to cut open the steel clips of the track.

He and his cousin Bimal Mahato were arrested Sunday in Jharkhand. Bimal was arrested for providing shelter to Bapi, one of the prime accused of the case.

The duo was produced before a local Saraikela court in Jharkhand, which granted the state police a day’s transit remand for their production in Jhargram court in West Midnapore by June 23.

The two have been charged under provisions of the Indian Railways Act related to offences of maliciously wrecking or attempting to wreck trains, and damage or destruction of certain railway properties.

They have also been charged under penal provisions dealing with murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy.

Bapi Mahato was nabbed from a guest house at Adityapur, 6 km from Jamshedpur, in Jharkhand’s Saraikela-Kharswan district by a joint team of the West Bengal and Jharkhand police.

The CBI Thursday declared a reward of Rs.1 lakh for any information about Bapi Mahato and two other prime accused - Umakant Mahato of Banksole village and Asit Mahato of Krishnanagar village in West Midnapore district. Umakant and Asit are still at large.