As the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani chugged into the New Delhi Railway station at 7.20 pm — nearly nine hours behind schedule — the smashed window panes and bold red graffiti on its sides explained the eagerness of the passengers to get off.

Held hostage for over seven hours on Tuesday by a Maoist-backed group in a jungle of West Midnapore, their relief was palpable.

Most agreed that though the activists did not mean harm, they were quite scared when the men broke the windows and forced their way into the train.

“I thought Rajdhanis were safe, but there wasn’t any police protection at all,” said Chanchal Ajmeria, a resident of Sambalpur who was coming to Delhi for a knee treatment. The passengers hid beneath berths and climbed on top berths as the inebriated, ululating mob rushed into the coaches.

“They asked us to get off the train. We had to walk down a rocky area, where I tripped and fell and hurt my knees,” Chanchal said as she was being wheeled out of the platform. “We huddled in a group and they surrounded us. After a while, they started rejoicing that their mission was successful. Till late evening, we sat fearing for our lives,” she added.

“We were asked to switch off our cellphones and only after the train left — around 10.15 pm — could we contact our families,” said Rajender Ajmeria, her husband.

Radhamohan Panda, deputy director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in Bhubaneswar, who was heading for Delhi to attend a meeting at IGNOU, said: “I hurt my elbow, another passenger’s eye was severely damaged by a shard of glass. No police or government authorities could reach us. They arrived six hours later.”

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