Sab theek hai… all passengers are safe

Two phones at the Bhubaneswar railway station,from where the New Delhi-bound 2443A Rajdhani Express pulled out at 9.35 am before it was stopped by tribals near Jhargram....

Two phones at the Bhubaneswar railway station,from where the New Delhi-bound 2443A Rajdhani Express pulled out at 9.35 am before it was stopped by tribals near Jhargram,kept ringing throughout Tuesday evening. As anxious callers kept the two lines busy,ticket collector Uday Kumar continued to calm nerves with a mix of Hindi and English. Sab theek hai. No passengers have been harmed. But the train is yet to start, Kumar kept repeating in an attempt to pass on the sketchy information received from his superiors.

The Rajdhani passengers contacted by The Indian Express described how the tribals surrounded the train,smashing windowpanes and doors. They wrote on the train exteriors demanding release of Chhatradhar Mahato. After about an hour,some of them took pity on us as there were quite a few children among the passengers. We were then allowed to go back inside, said Himanshu Patra,who works for Vasundhara,a Bhubaneswar-based NGO.

At Bhubaneswar railway station,businessman Udipta Sahu was trying to find out if his younger brother Manoj Sahu (40),sister-in-law and nephew were safe in their B-3 compartment. At around 4.30 pm,Manoj had called up my elder brother saying the train has stopped near a jungle and the passengers were being asked to get down. The call barely lasted for a minute, said Udipta. He told my brother that he couldnt talk to him as some people were watching him.

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Businessman Suman Mahakud also seemed worried for his 32-year-old brother Jayant,an engineer with a Delhi-based company,who was returning to the national capital with his wife and two-year-old son after a vacation. Mahakud boarded the train at Balasore station,the final point for Delhi-bound Rajdhani in Orissa before it enters West Bengal. He called my elder brother saying some Maoists have attacked the train and smashed some of the glasspanes. The call ended soon after, he said.

Bhubaneswar station superintendent Trilochan Nayak said 205 people boarded the Rajdhani from the four stations in Orissa. There were no VIP passengers from Orissa, he said.

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