22 Die in India Rail Blast Linked to Tamil Separatists

Saboteurs blew up a railway bridge Sunday in southern India, derailing an express train and killing at least 22 people, police said.

Police reported 150 people injured, according to the United News of India news agency.

Investigators said leaflets left at the scene pointed to Tamil extremists, who are angry that India is not lending enough support to the fight by Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka for a homeland in that nearby island nation.

The bomb, detonated by remote control, blasted the Rockfort Express locomotive off the track and sent the engine and eight cars, most of them carrying passengers, crashing into a dry riverbed near Ariyilar, about 160 miles south of Madras. Nine cars remained on the track, three of them dangling from the bridge, about a third of which collapsed.

About 150 feet of track were destroyed by the bomb, which exploded at 4:45 a.m., police said.

“We have absolutely no doubt that this was a case of sabotage,” K.K. Rajesekaran-Nair, inspector general of police, said.

Posters Back Tamils

Police said posters affixed to bridge supports and leaflets left near the crossing hailed Tamil rebels fighting for independence in Sri Lanka, the nation formerly called Ceylon. Southern India has a large Tamil population. India and Sri Lanka are only 18 miles apart at their closest point.

The leaflets demanded more official use locally of the Tamil language, rather than Hindi, and called for withdrawing federal troops from the predominantly Sikh northern state of Punjab, police said.

India, home to 50 million Tamils in this state of Tamil Nadu, has been trying to mediate a political settlement between Sri Lankan Tamil militants and the Sri Lankan government.

Tamils, mainly Hindu, in Sri Lanka charge that they are discriminated against by that country’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Tamils make up about 18% of Sri Lanka’s 15 million population.

Police said Sunday night there was no specific claim of responsibility for the bombing from any extremist organization.