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Train fire kills 64; Officials blame militants

By TIMES WIRES
Published February 19, 2007

A train traveling to Pakistan caught fire early today in northern India, killing at least 64 people, and officials said two suitcases filled with flammable material that appeared to be explosive devices were found at the scene.

V.N. Mathur, general manager of the Northern Railway, said one of the suitcases was found in a burned train car and the other was on the track.

India's top railway official blamed Muslim militants bent on harming relations between longtime rivals India and Pakistan.

Soon after the fire broke out, residents living near the tracks rushed to scene with buckets of water. The blaze was extinguished after fire trucks arrived.

The fire engulfed two cars of the Samjhauta Express, one of two train links between India and Pakistan. Because of security concerns, the train is kept sealed with locked doors and barred windows in the lower-class coaches when it travels from New Delhi to the border. Passengers may have been trapped inside the burning cars.

Within hours of the fire, authorities detached the burned cars and the rest of the train continued on.

28 blasts in south kill 3, military says

At least 28 bombs exploded Sunday in apparently coordinated attacks in parts of southern Thailand plagued by a Muslim insurgency, killing three people and wounding more than 50, the military said.

The bombings targeted hotels, karaoke bars, power grids and commercial sites in the country's southernmost provinces, the only parts of predominantly Buddhist Thailand with Muslim majorities. Police said three Thais of Chinese descent were also gunned down in Pattani province in what was believed to be the act of insurgents.

Violence in the south has been escalating in recent months after an insurgency erupted in 2004, fueled by accusations of decades of misrule by the government.

Elsewhere

PAKISTAN: Police in Pakistan detained 36 men, including 22 Afghan refugees, for questioning about a suicide bombing inside a courtroom in Quetta on Saturday that killed a judge and 15 other people, officials said Sunday. There is suspicion that pro-Taliban militants are behind a series of recent attacks.

INDONESIA: Twin landslides hit Indonesia's Java island Sunday, killing at least 12 people after they were buried under mounds of earth, officials said.

[Last modified February 19, 2007, 00:15:50]