An explosion ripped through two cars of a passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing four people and injuring at least 50 others, police said. The cause of the blast was not immediately known. It was not clear if any explosive device had been planted in the train or on the track. The explosion occurred near Belacoba train station, about 550 kilometers (345 miles) north of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state, said the state's Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy. Officials did not name any suspect, and no one immediately claimed responsibility.
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Ten people died and at least 60 were injured yesterday in a blast that rocked a passenger train in the West Bengal, a spokesman for the Indian Railways said. The train was on its way from Haldibari to New Jalpaiguri in the state when the explosion hit one of its carriages at Belakoba station, 500km from the state capital Kolkata, said Prasad Ranjan Roy, West Bengal's home secretary. "Six people were killed and 60 wounded in the blast," Trikal Rabha, a spokesman for Northeastern Frontier Railway, told AFP from Guwahati city in neighbouring Assam state. "The toll may go up as 25 people are in a critical state."
Rescue workers have reached the spot and are shifting the injured to hospitals in New Jalpaiguri, 18 kilometres (11 miles) from site of the blast, Rabha added. It was not immediately known what caused the explosion as the area where the blast took place is in a remote corner of West Bengal state, bordering the Himalayan countries of Bhutan and Nepal, police said. Separatist rebels of the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) -- fighting for a separate homeland -- are known to be active in the region, police said. The KLO is known to maintain close links with the banned United Liberation Front of Asom, one of the most powerful insurgent groups operating in India's restive northeast.