Communist rebels seized a passenger train in eastern India overnight but fled and left passengers unharmed by the time police and soldiers reached the train early yesterday, officials said.
The hijacking took place late on Monday in an isolated district of Jharkhand state, top district official K.K. Sone said. Maoist rebels in the region have been fighting for a quarter-century to defend the rights of the region's poor.
"It appears that they just wanted to prove a point: that they could do such a thing," Sone said.
PHOTO: AP
He said there had been no shooting, and that none of the 50 or so passengers on the train had been hurt.
Few other details were immediately available.
The incident began late on Monday when the driver of a cargo train passing through the state's Latehar district reported his train and a passenger train had come under attack from Maoist rebels. The area is about 1,200km southeast of New Delhi.
A railway official, A.K. Shukla, said the cargo train had managed to escape.
Shukla said the passenger train had left a station at the town of Hehegharha at around 7pm and had been expected to make its next stop about two hours later but never arrived.
The rebels, who claim to be inspired by former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and who are known as the "Naxalites," are active in eastern states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Chhattisgarh and in some parts of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
The insurgents had called for a weeklong general strike in Latehar to protest the recent killing of one of their regional commanders by security forces, Sone said.
The rebels are most active in India's most impoverished areas, many predominantly inhabited by India's indigenous people -- known as "tribals" -- who have benefited little from the region's rich mineral resources exploited by outsiders.
Reacting to the train seizure, the Indian government said yesterday it was taking measures to tackle the insurgency, which has grown worse in recent months.
Officials are trying to boost development in the rebel-dominated areas, and also are stepping up security to counter the insurgents, said V.K. Duggal, the top bureaucrat in the federal home ministry.
The insurgents on Feb. 28 attacked a convoy on trucks in the state of Chhattisgarh, neighboring Jharkhand. The rebels blew up one of the truck and set two others on fire, killing 24 people and injuring 32 others.
The insurgents often attack landlords and police, and in Jharkhand, they also have targeted government officials, whom they accuse of allowing outsiders to exploit the state's rich mineral resources.
They have also launched attacks on India's sprawling rail network, which covers more than 64,000km, has 7,000 stations and provides millions of people with transport.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese