Fresh violence on Wednesday rocked the trouble-torn Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts in Assam where the Rajdhani Express was attacked by some persons even as the entire train services to and from the Northeast was hit.
An Improvised Explosive Device blast completely damaged a stretch of the railway track and led to derailment of seven bogies of the Guwahati-Puri Express, injuring over 100 passengers in Assam's rural Kamrup district, a senior Railway official said.
After a gap of 75 days, the North East Frontier Railway has decided to resume passenger train service along the Lumding-Badarpur hill section that passes through the insurgency ravaged North Cachar Hill district after Assam government assured proper security along the route.
The locomotive of the Kamrup Express was damaged in an explosion triggered by tribal Karbi militants at Khakhati in Assam's Karbi Anglong district at around 1.30 pm on Tuesday. However, over 400 passengers traveling in the train escaped unscathed as the impact of the explosion was not felt in the coaches. The damaged locomotive of the passenger train was replaced and the train continued its journey towards Tinsukia in Eastern Assam.
Two motor-bikes were torched, while some private cars were seized by crowds in Jalukbari near the Guwahati University, sources said.
The ACD is a technological breakthrough by the Konkan Railway and is designed to prevent head-on-collisions.
The heritage Darjeeling Himalayan Railways will resume the toy train services from December from Siliguri.
After several delays, it will be completed by Jan 2017.
Projects about to be completed include the first rail connectivity projects in Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, along with crucial gauge conversion between Rangpara and North Lakhimpur, which would connect Arunachal Pradesh to the rest of the country.
Train services were paralysed in Assam as several Bodo outfits resorted to a 12-hour railway blockade in Kokrajhar while violence continued for the third day in Karbi Anglong as ethnic groups stepped up their demand for a separate state on the lines of Telangana.
Railway hospitals will offer postgraduate courses for medical students.
In the wake of the recovery of a powerful improvised explosive device from a passenger train ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Guwahati in Assam on November 29, security agencies have been forced to embark on a detailed inspection of all the vulnerable locations including those frequented by VIPs.
The situation was on Saturday peaceful along the Assam-Nagaland border in Golaghat district, where 11 people have died so far, but nearly 10,000 people have fled their homes to take shelter in relief camps.
While incessant rain in the past 24 hours has wreaked havoc in parts of the northeast, triggering flash floods, the national capital experienced one of its hottest days.
Scheduled to be completed in 2016, the 4.94 km rail-cum-road bridge, India's longest bridge, will come up across the mighty Brahmaputra at Bogibeel in Assam. It is not only expected to be a lifeline for the Northeast, but will also strengthen the country's security.
Heavy rains in the last three days triggered flash floods in parts of Bihar, where 41 people have died so far, and inundated large areas in Assam and North Bengal, paralysing normal life and snapping rail link to the Northeast from the rest of the country.