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RANCHI, India: Suspected Maoist rebels derailed a passenger train in eastern India, killing two people and injuring more than 40, police said on Friday.
Two bodies had been found in an overturned carriage in the state of Jharkhand, and 48 people were injured, state police chief V.D. Ram told AFP from the state capital Ranchi.
"Maoists attacked and blew up the tracks between stations late Thursday night," said Ram, adding that dozens more could still be trapped in coaches.
The train was travelling from the eastern state of Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand when eight of its 10 coaches derailed in the southeast of the state after guerrillas detonated bombs in front of the engine, said Ram.
The attack, as well as another bombing at a mine in southern Jharkhand on Friday, came ahead of polls in the state later this month.
The rebels frequently target train tracks in the "red corridor" of Maoist activity stretching across north and eastern India, but usually without deadly consequences.
Last month, Maoist-backed activists hijacked an express train in the eastern state of West Bengal to demand the release of a tribal leader arrested in September and who is supported by the rebels, but there were no casualties.
The NDTV network speculated that government forces travelling in the train could have been the target of the Maoists, who claim to be fighting for the rights of India's poor and tribal populations.
Suspected rebels also bombed a mine owned by the state-run Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) on Friday in Jharkhand near its border with the state of Orissa, police said.
"Maoists detonated a low-intensity bomb in Meghatpur, but there were no injuries," a police official who asked not to be named told AFP from Orissa's state capital Bhubhaneswar.
Another bomb in a mine on the border between Jharkhand and Orissa was defused, the official said.
The Maoist movement started as a peasant uprising in 1967, but has now spread to 20 of India's 29 states.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has labelled the leftist rebels the greatest threat to India's internal security, and a massive security operation planned by the federal government to wipe them out is tipped to start this month.
- AFP/so
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