On friday a high speed passenger train, Gyaneshwari Express was derailed by a bomb placed on its tracks while travelling from Kolkata to Mumbai. Derailed coaches were hit by a goods train travelling in the opposite direction on the adjoining tracks. One hundred and fourteen people are known to have died but this may not be the final figure. Police blame Maoist guerrillas who have been on a killing spree in recent weeks. The Railway Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee wants an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI into the accident. She accused the state government of not cooperating with rescue operations. This is a serious charge. It implies that the state government allowed people to die through inaction as a political vendetta against her to make her look bad. Ms Banerjee is chief of Trinamul Congress which is opposed to the Communist government in Bengal and hopes to win next year's assembly elections. She has been accused of being absent from her desk in Delhi during a spate of train accidents recently and is said to have replied that since her home was in Kolkata she preferred to live there. For relatives of the dead it will be like a kick in the abdomen. To be told that their loved ones could have been saved but were allowed to die for political points will be unbearable. For us taxpayers to see our hard earned money being wasted on absentee ministers is infuriating. Just a month ago we learnt that Mr. Alagiri, another minister in the central government has been travelling to Chennai every three days at the cost of Rs. 1.5 million in expenses. Will the Prime Minister sack these people? Er, got to ask madam. Genuflect.