A group of about 40 Maoists raided Narganjo station and abducted two railway officials in the rank of assistant station master and a porter late Wednesday night. The trio were released after four hours.

“We were on duty around 10.30pm when the rebels, carrying guns, entered the station and asked us to accompany them. They locked us in a storeroom and later took us a few metres away from the station. The rebels said they had planted explosives on the tracks so it was not safe for us to stay there,” Maldhari Rabani, one of the two assistant station managers, said on Thursday. The rebels set the hostages free around 2.30am on Thursday, Rabani added.

Narganjo, a little known railway station on the Kiul-Asansol main line of the Eastern Railway’s Asansol division, falls under Jamui district, a Maoist stronghold. The station has always been a soft target of the Maoists, particularly when they call bandhs.

Senior railway officers and security personnel admitted that the 5-km stretch between Narganjo and Ghorparan railway stations along the section was under the mercy of the rebels.

The Maoists, who had called a 48-hour bandh on Tuesday in protest against the arrest of some of their leaders, indulged in largescale violence in Jamui and Banka on Wednesday. They disrupted train movement along the section for over seven hours.

Several long-distance trains were withdrawn from this section between 11.55pm and 6.40am. “We spent a sleepless night inside the compartment of Mithila Expresss at Jasidih station,” said Santosh Kumar, a passenger.

“We received an urgent message from the Asansol control room late last night. The message said links with Narganjo and Ghorparan stations were disconnected from 11.55pm. Even cellphones of the assistant station masters could not be reached. We immediately stopped running all trains from Jhajha to Narganjo,” said H.M. Choubey, the Jhajha station master.

He said a special train was arranged for the security forces, who were ready to move to Narganjo around 1.30am. But the train left at 5.45am. “It was not wise to move to Narganjo so late in the night. We decided to proceed after the sunrise,” a Railway Police Force official said.

On the other hand, the rebels demolished two towers of a private cellphone provider at Dhouri hamlet and Tateria under Sono block. The Maoists set a tractor on fire at Sarodehi under Sono police station on Wednesday. They also burnt an SUV at Sambhuganj market in Banka.