Remnants of smashed windowpanes of the Bhubaneswar Rajdhani lying beside the railway track in Banstala. (Amit Datta)

Banstala (West Midnapore), Oct. 28: An eyewitness to the Rajdhani blockade today claimed that the mob wanted to set the train on fire but were deterred by Maoist minders over phone.

The disclosure and accounts by others suggest that the blockade was a “Maoist message” that spun out of control and took a life of its own to transform itself into a “hostage crisis”.

At no point was anyone, including the drivers, taken hostage but the situation could have blown up.

The 400-odd activists of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities had asked the passengers to get off the Delhi-bound Bhubaneswar Rajdhani at Banstala, thinking they would get the go-ahead to torch the express.

“It was only when they were instructed over phone not to do so did they ask the passengers to get back,” said Ashok Dey, who had come to Banstala station to recharge his mobile as there is no electricity elsewhere in the area.

The blockade was being enforced as part of an indefinite bandh in West Midnapore to protest an alleged reign of terror by security forces. The bandh was called off today.

As he sat on a bench on the platform, Dey recounted the seven-hour siege at the halt in the middle of Banstala forest, which is connected to several jungles — Ramrama, Balivasha, Munia Kundri and Antushole — all considered Maoist strongholds.

Around the station, there are just eight shops, all mud huts, and some dozen houses. Today, the area was deserted — every male resident of 15 villages had fled fearing arrests.

Ticket seller Swapan Mahato was not at the station when the mob “hijacked” the train. “I had gone for lunch,” he said.

What Mahato missed, Dey will never tire of telling. “At one point, one of the squatters (on the tracks) pointed a gun at a railway staff for refusing to turn off the engine,” the quack, in his mid-thirties, recalled. “The man then turned off the engine.”

But a humming sound persisted and the youth asked the railway employee to stop it. “The man folded his hands and told him the AC machines wouldn’t function and passengers might suffocate. The youth then let him keep the generator on,” Dey said.

Other sources said Maoists — not their sympathisers —had planned the initial operation to send a “message” to railway minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been increasingly trying to distance herself from the Naxalites.

“She is being ambivalent and we don’t know her stand,” a Maoist source said. “We were simply sending a signal to her to let her know about our disaffection. It is possible what was meant as a warning almost got out of hand.”

Some sources blamed divisions between Maoist hardliners and others for the confusion. They said Kishanji’s “violent” ways had driven a wedge within the organisation.

Police said the blockade was planned by full-fledged Maoists, who used the anti-police committee’s banner. “It was Santosh Patra who led the blockade and he is a hardcore Maoist,” said an officer.

The police claimed a Maoist was gunned down in an encounter following the train siege but his body could not be found.

‘Unknown’ FIR

The railways stuck to “normal procedure” today and filed an FIR against “unknown persons” for holding up the train, “heckling passengers” and preventing staff from “discharging their duties for a long time”.

Although some known faces of the committee, including Patra, were among the crowd, a railway official said: “Who will identify them? We do not know any of them.”