Pakistani police arrest man for stealing train engine
A Pakistani man stole an unattended train engine from a southern station, driving it more than 20 miles and dangerously close to a passenger train on the same line before being arrested.
Madan Lal told police he took the locomotive late yesterday so he could travel to the southern port city of Karachi.
But police are investigating whether he was planning to carry out a terrorist attack, said Malik Afzal, an official with the Pakistan Railways police.
The engine had been left unattended at Pipri railway station by its driver and his assistant, who left it to get a cup of tea from a nearby stall, Afzal said.
Lal, who is in his 50s, got into the engine and drove it about 20 miles through two train stations before entering sprawling Karachi’s city limits, Afzal said.
With Lal behind its controls, the engine was minutes away from slamming into the rear of a passenger train travelling in the same direction, but further ahead on the line, Afzal said.
But railway workers diverted the engine onto a service line and forced Lal to stop shortly before the line came to an abrupt end.
“He could have rammed the passenger train and that could have been a disaster,” Afzal said.
Lal, who said he had never worked as a train driver, but knew how to drive one, has not yet been charged. But he faces a life jail sentence if convicted of hijacking the engine, Afzal said.
The engine’s driver and his assistant have been arrested for negligence.
