A railway track was blown up and two trucks were torched by the Maoists in Bihar on Saturday while the police in Jharkhand arrested four Maoists, including a woman, after a three-hour exchange of fire on the first day of the Left-wing rebels’ two-day bandh across the two states.
A major railway accident was averted near Hajipur in Bihar’s Vaishali district after the driver of the Lucknow-Barauni Express train saw a portion of the tracks missing and stopped the train in time. Movement of trains were affected for about four hours and several trains had to be diverted till the damaged tracks, believed to have been blown up by the Maoists, were repaired.
“The tracks seem to have been blown up by use of explosives. We have collected samples and asked for help in probe by forensic experts,” said Hajipur SDPO Kailash Prasad. The railways passed instruction to all train drivers to limit their speed to 65 km till the Maoist strike was over, said sources.
In Muzaffarpur, armed Maoists set afire to two trucks after removing their drivers and assistants out of the vehicles. Markets in towns in several parts of southern Bihar and northern Jharkhand remained closed the entire day on Saturday for feat of Maoist attacks.
In Jharkhand, where the shutdown had a greater effect, the police and a group of armed Maoists had a three-hour exchange of fire at Tupudana near Ranchi.