Giridih: Home Minister P Chidambaram has reached Kolkata for crucial Naxal meet, but two of the four chief ministers have decided to give it a skip.
Shibu Soren, the Chief Minister of Jharkhand is absent and he is sending his deputy. The Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is also absent the and the state secretary is going instead.
Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has yet not reached as his plane has a technical snag. Only West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee is present at the meeting venue.
The meeting was fixed much in advance, the agenda was to review in detail the strategy adopted to deal with Naxals particularly coordination among the states.
Mr Nitish Kumar alleged that Bihar has not been treated well.
He said: "I have been requesting for 23 companies of the CRFP here. Ialready told the Centre, that I can't be out of my state all the time,but those sitting at the Centre decide dates arbitrarily."
Maoists step up attacksMeanwhile, Maoists have struck in Bihar and Jharkhand, ahead of
Home Minister's meeting with the Chief Ministers.
In an audacious strike, Naxals blasted the Howrah-Delhi line at the Narganjo railway station in the Jamui district of Bihar.
The Narganjo railway station is under repeated attack by Maoists for the last two days. Last night at about 1 am they struck at the same place, set fire to the control room, destroyed the platform and the track there.
Train services on the route have been suspended.
Maoists have also blown up a stretch of a railway track, at three different places, in Jharkhand's Giridh district just after midnight.
The tracks were blown up under Nimiaghat police station in the district, Superintendent of Police Ravi Kant Dhan said.
The explosion took place on the Howrah-Delhi alternate route; train traffic between Gomoh and Gaya has been stopped by railway authorities as a precaution.
Repair work on the line is on, and services here are expected to resume within the next two hours.
"Trains on this section have been stopped on both up and down lines," Parasnath station superintendent Mrutinjaya Kumar said, adding a couple of deafening explosions were heard around 2 am.
In another attack, Naxals have blasted a government middle school in the Khunti District of Jharkhand.
Today is the third day of the 72-hour shutdown called by Maoist in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh protesting the proposed all-out offensive against them by the Centre.
They yesterday
blew up railway tracks in Orissa and Bihar on the second day of their 72-hour bandh.
Jharkhand CM Secretariat said: "Guruji has fallen ill, both his deputy CMs, Raghuwar Das and Sudesh Mahto are attending." (With PTI inputs)
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