Train intercepted in Bengal freed after 7 hrs

Days after the state buckled to let 21 Maoist suspects walk in exchange for an abducted police officer, Maoists, leading armed tribals from Lalgarh and West Midnapore, today stopped the Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express from Bhubaneswar in its tracks here and seized control for over seven hours.

In the drama at Banstala in the Jhargram-Kharagpur section, the Maoists and their supporters wrote the script, cocking a snook at the Railways under Mamata Banerjee and the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government in the state.

The Rajdhani Express was intercepted by a 1,500-strong mob at 2.35 pm and its driver and his assistant were taken hostage. Armed men then called the shots, demanding among other things the release of Chhatradhar Mahato of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) — the seizure of the train came a day after the PCAPA announced it would resort to an armed struggle to achieve its goals.

At 10.10 pm, the Rajdhani Express finally resumed its journey after security forces, being directed from New Delhi where Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was personally monitoring the situation and kept in touch with both the forces and the state government, closed in and the mob fled.

A relief train with food, drinking water and medical supplies came in from Kharagpur and a pilot engine arrived from Jamshedpur to escort the Rajdhani.

Earlier, a police team, which approached the spot from the Jhargram-end, came under fire in Kanchanmil. The policemen returned the fire. A police driver, who sustained bullet injuries, had to be removed to hospital.

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