The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Naxals blow up railway signal room

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 16, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Naxals blow up railway signal room

By Our Staff Reporter

GUNTUR, MAY 15. Naxalites belonging to the People's War have blown up the control-cum-signal room of a railway crossing between Sattenapalli and Piduguralla at Dhulipalla, but there is no damage to the track.

Four naxals came to the gangman's shelter and asked him to come out of it at 12.30 p.m. and blasted it with gelatin sticks completely damaging the newly-installed signalling equipment and the level-crossing gate locking system. The gate remained closed for some time as it got damaged in closed condition after a goods train passed.

The gateman, Prakasam, was handed over a letter by the naxals terming this action as a retaliation for the Pamidipadu exchange of fire in Bollapalli mandal last week. A motorcyclist going to the Loyala Engineering College, was stopped and his vehicle snatched by the naxals to flee the site.

They took his telephone No. and told him that they would inform him of the place of desertion of the vehicle.

The railway officials along with the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Railway Protection Force, Abubui Siddiqui, rushed to the level crossing on the Dhulipalla-Burugubanda road. The loss was estimated at Rs.2 lakhs. There was no disturbance to the movement of trains between Guntur and Hyderabad.

The naxals rang up newspaper offices intimating the incident. The naxalites had given a bandh call in Guntur district to protest against the death of four naxalites in the Pamidipadu exchange of fire. Normal life was not affected in the district except destruction of three country liquor shops at Bellamkondavaripalem and Nagulavaram villages in Macherla mandal by 20 sympathisers of the People's War.

The police, meanwhile, arrested Kancheti Sai Kumar and 23 others in Sattenapalli on the charge of resorting to destruction of an electronic voting machine at Pesapadu in Krosuru mandal and stopping a Sub-Inspector of Police while on duty on the polling day.

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