New Delhi, October 27: Indian troops have secured a passenger train hours after hundreds of protesters in east India seized the high-speed express and abducted its driver and his assistant, officials said.
“All the passengers are safe,” Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee announced in New Delhi after paramilitary soldiers and police from West Bengal state today took control of the New Delhi-bound express without resistance from the protesters.
“The troops are now searching for the engine driver and his assistant,” Soumita Majumdar, regional spokesman of the state-run railways, said in state capital Kolkata.
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidamabaram confirmed the drama ended five hours after the kidnapping between Jhargram and Sarna stations in West Bengal.
“Central forces and state police have secured the train, and there is no sign of any adversary in the area … All are safe,” he told reporters in New Delhi.
“Some hours ago there was firing and a civilian was injured, but there has been no exchange of fire” between the protesters and troops, he said.
A Maoist leader, Kishanji, told local TV the left-wing rebels were not responsible for the attack.
TV channels reported that the protesters had guaranteed the safety of the two train employees and the passengers, but they also demanded the release of Chhatradhar Mahato, a Maoist-backed tribal leader arrested last month.
Maoist violence has claimed more than 600 lives this year with the rebels staging a series of raids despite some successes by security forces in arresting or killing senior members.
The rebels, thought to number as many as 20,000, say they fight for the rights of the rural poor, but officials accuse them of using intimidation and extortion to collect money and to control impoverished villagers.
—Agencies