Man held for rail sabotage says he did it to ‘attract attention of cops’

The teenage drug addict arrested for attempting rail sabotage near Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station said he did it to ‘attract the attention of the policemen.’

The accused, Deva Kaul (19), told the Government Railway Police (GRP) that he had been harbouring anger against the police as they had not taken cognisance of his phone theft complaint six months ago.

On Monday, the Government Railway Police (GRP) of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and Intelligence Bureau interrogated Kaul for nine long hours.

During interrogation, Kaul talked about a past incident that took place with a city police official. Kaul who sells balloons at Kalaghoda area in South Mumbai had allegedly lost his phone.

“During interrogation, Kaul told us that the police did not entertain him when he went to register a complaint about his lost phone,” said Machindra Chawan, Assistant Police Inspector, GRP, CST.

GRP sources said that he allegedly wanted to attract the attention of policemen through the act of sabotage. The officials are also verifying the terrorism angle and have not ruled out it yet.

“We will try to find out whether Kaul was acting under somebody’s instructions,” added Chawan.

Kaul revealed he hailed from Churhat town located in Madhya Pradesh.

As a preventive measure, GRP will also send a third letter to the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Central Railway, Ravindra Goyal mentioning the dire need to remove all railway equipment from the tracks to avoid repeated incidents of sabotage.

On Sunday, CST GRP arrested Kaul who allegedly attempted to sabotage a local train by keeping an iron rod weighing at least 60 kg on railway tracks near CST.