Kanpur train derailment: PM Narendra Modi hints at Pakistan hand

Gonda: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday touched upon the 2016 Kanpur train tragedy and termed it as a "conspiracy" of the people "sitting across the border".

Addressing an election rally in Uttar Pradesh's Gonda district, the Prime Minister said, “the derailment of the Indore-Patna Express on November 20 last year was a conspiracy and conspirators carried it out sitting across the border ... Gonda is adjoining Nepal."

"If the cross-border foes want to carry out their work, is it not necessary that more vigil is maintained in Gonda?" PM Modi asked the people as he exhorted them to vote for the BJP.

"Gonda needs to elect only those who are full of patriotism, only then we can do anything good for Gonda," he said.

"There should not be any mistake in this election ... be it the SP or the BSP, not a single seat should go to them ... 100 per cent seats should be won by the BJP," the Prime Minister said.

The NIA is investigating the alleged role of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence behind last November's Indore-Patna Express train derailment near Kanpur that claimed over 150 lives.

Bihar Police had arrested three people -- identified as Moti Paswan, Umashankar Prasad and Mukesh Yadav -- for their alleged role in the train derailment and claimed to have found evidence linking them to ISI.

Paswan had confessed that he was paid to plant explosives in the train and that the ISI had executed the whole derailment plan.

He told the Bihar Police that the money he received came from a known ISI sympathiser, Dubai-based Shamshul Hodi.