Naxals blast railway station in Gaya

Gaya: Naxalites blew up a railway station and a track in Gaya district of Bihar early on Sunday morning.

No casualties have been reported. CPI (Maoist) activists have called for a bandh in central Bihar on Sunday to protest against the police crackdown on them in the state.

Heavily armed extremists of the banned outfit came to the Bansi Nala station on Gaya-Dhanbad section at around 0215 hrs IST and tied up the staff before blasting the building with dynamites.

The naxalites also blew tracks and damaged overhead electric wires, railway officials said. Restoration work is on and the GRP and the Railway Protection Force contingents are guarding the site now.

The naxals held three railway personnel prisoner and released them later. As a precaution, the railways have called off all trains plying between Mughalsarai and Gaya.

Trains on the grand chord line between Gaya and Patna were suspended last night as a precautionary measure in view of the bandh called to protest the arrest of four CPI (Maoist) leaders, including its senior commanders Guddu Sharma and Binda Singh in Patna last Sunday.

Following the arrest, naxalites had seized Nadaul station in Patna district the same night after chasing away the Station Master.

Though no other 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.

Reports from rural areas of Gaya, Arwal and Jehanabad districts said the shopkeepers downed the shutters due to fear of reprisal from naxalites.

The East Central railway has cancelled Dhanbad-Gaya intercity, Varanasi-Asansol express train and Patna-Gaya memu service and regulated, rescheduled and changed the routes of many trains.

Thses include Hatia-Delhi Swarna Jayanti express, Jodhpur-Howrah express, Sealdah-Jammu Tawi express, Bhubaneswar Rajdhani express, Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani express, Ranchi-New Delhi Rajdhani express, Howrah-Gwalior Chambal express, Palamu express, Patna-Hatia express and Ganga Damodar express, railway sources said.

(With inputs from PTI)