Suspected Maoists kidnapped two railway cabin men and hijacked a train in Naxalite-hit Lakhisarai district in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday during their weeklong Bihar-Jharkhand bandh called to commemorate the cadres killed during police encounters in the two states.

A group of 20 heavily armed Maoists descended on Bhalui halt on the Kiul-Jhajha railway section of the east central railway around 11pm on Wednesday and kidnapped its cabin man Pramod Kumar Mandal. They then asked the gateman to turn the signal red to stop the train at the halt.

As soon as Danapur-Durg Express reached Bhalui halt around 2.30am, the Maoists held the driver and his assistant captive. The train remained stranded at the halt for over two hours. The gateman was let off and the train resumed its onward journey only after an encounter between the security forces and the Maoists.

A senior official with the Central Reserve Police Force said on Thursday the commandos of the 207-CoBra battalion rushed to the spot from Jamui soon after getting information about the detention of the train between Bhalui halt and Jitendra halt. A gunbattle forced the rebels to retreat.

The Maoists also blew up a mobile tower of a private cellular company soon after the train was hijacked. Though no casualty has been reported from either side of the two, there were reports that Naxalites and the CRPF personnel engaged in exchange of fire for quite sometime, the CRPF official said. The station house officer (SHO) of Jamui Government Railway Police, Bhagwan Singh, said another group of Maoists held the cabin man of Gopalpur railway halt Munnilal Mandal hostage and disrupted train movement on the Kiul-Jhajha section since midnight. As a result many trains remained stranded at different stations.

The traffic on the route resumed around 6am on Thursday. While Maoists released Pramod around 2.30am, Munnilal was let off only after an hour. Pramod reported the incident to the officials posted at Urain railway station after being freed early in the morning.

Lakhisarai additional superintendent of police (operations) Pawan Kumar Upadhyay said a combing operation had been launched in the region to nab the Maoists involved in causing disruption to the movement of trains on Patna-Howrah mainline from midnight to around 6am today.

He, however, clarified that the trains were stopped at Jamalpur (Munger) and Jhajha (Jamui) railway stations as a precautionary measures. There were apprehension that the Naxals might have damaged the railway tracks on the Patna-Howrah mainline and Sahebganj-Kiul loop line to cause derailment of trains.

According to railway officials, movement of trains remained suspended on the route for nearly six hours.

Sources said the intention of the Maoists was to lure the security forces for an ambush.

"But they (Maoists) couldn't succeed in their plan as the Cobra commandoes reached the site on foot after covering a distance of about 12km," said a senior CRPF official, who was monitoring the overnight operation from Patna.

The officer said the area where the train was hijacked is considered a Maoist hotbed. A similar incident had happened in June 2013 when 200 rebels had hijacked the Dhanbad-Patna Intercity Express. Three passengers were killed and six others were injured in the incident. The attackers had also snatched two rifles from the members of the escort team. One of the jawans was also killed in the gun battle.