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Naxal bandh, blast disrupt Mugalsarai,
Gaya, Kolkata train services

      Gaya: Most of the trains along the New Delhi-Mugalsarai-Kolkata and Mugalsarai-Gaya sections have been cancelled in the wake of the 24-hour Magadh bandh called by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to protest against the arrest of their leaders Guddu Sharma and Vrinda Singh. Heavily armed Naxalites blew up the Banshi Nala halt station in Gaya District and portions of railway tracks on the Gaya-Dhanbad section of Mughalsarai division last night. Police suspect Maoists retaliated in protest against the arrest of their two cadres as they were shouting the slogan "Laal alaam". They also held four railway staffs captive for hours, whom they released later. Shushil Kumar Bariyar, a railway staff released from the custody of ultras, said that over 200 heavily-armed ultras stormed the halt at around 2:15 am and asked everyone to vacate the station premises."They forced us to move away on the gun-point, and detonated dynamites to raze the one room structure to the ground," Bariyar said.

    However, the East Central Railway as a precautionary measure in view of the bandh already had suspended movement of all trains on the section. Though no other untoward incident has been reported from anywhere else normal life has been affected in rural areas of Gaya, Arwal and Jehanabad districts with commercial vehicles off the roads. Route of more than 20 trains including Howrah-Dehradun Doon Express, Howrah-Mumbai Mail, Neelanchal Express, Jodhpur Express, Howrah-Delhi Rajdhani Express, Shipra Express, Puri Express have been changed. Superintendent of Police Amit Jain said that the patrolling has been intensified and combing operation to nab the ultras has been going on in the area since last night. Senior police and railway officials have reached the spot. Repair work is on to restore traffic on the section. Patna police and Special Task Force (STF), in a joint operation, had arrested two hardcore CPI (Maoist) activists - Guddu Sharma and Brinda Singh - near Rajendra Nagar overbridge on last Sunday. The unidentified extremists, last Sunday night, also had attacked Nadaul railway station on Patna-Gaya section under the Danapur division of East Central Railway (ECR) and held station-master Rajesh Kumar captive for more than an hour. Maoists have so far damaged railway property worth more than Rs 5 crore in the last five years on Patna-Jehanabad rail section.
-April 9, 2006

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