People pelt stones at the security personnel outside Patna Sahib railway station and (below) the enraged crowd try to set ablaze railway equipment. Pictures by Sachin

Patna, May 12: Securitymen who are being praised for ensuring peaceful polls in Bengal got into an ugly brawl with local residents at the Patna Sahib railway station today, touching off a pitched battle in which over 30 people were injured.

The free-for-all began around 10 in the morning and was sparked by a tussle to get into a waiting train’s general bogies occupied by a large group of para-military forces.

As many as six general coaches of the Howrah-Delhi Janata Express were occupied by jawans from the Central Reserve Police Force, Sashastra Seema Bal as well as police personnel from Haryana and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police — all returning after standing guard during the just concluded Bengal elections.

At 9.37am, the train pulled into platform 2 where a large number of people — mainly from Patna City — were waiting to get on to the general bogies.

“There were a lot of jawans inside the train. Some of the local passengers asked them to open the doors of the coaches. The jawans ignored their requests. An altercation ensued during which the jawans pushed back one of the women. This enraged the waiting people,” an official at the railway station said.

Superintendent of police (railways) Suresh Chaudhary told The Telegraph that the bogies were unreserved but the jawans were not allowing anyone to board them.

“They were not reserved sleeper class coaches. The jawans had occupied at least six of them and the local passengers wanted to get on to them as well,” he said.

As the train began to pull out of the platform, some of the passengers pelted stones at the coaches. Sources said one of the stones allegedly hit a jawan. His colleagues pulled the chain, barged out of the train armed with sticks and started to beat up anyone on the platform they could lay their hands on.

“They did not spare anyone, including women and children. At least three women, among them an old lady, were hit by sticks and they have been seriously injured. The people ran for cover on to the tracks outside the station premises but the jawans chased them. Soon, local residents joined this bunch, resulting in a sustained bout of stone-pelting,” a shopkeeper at the station said.

A broken window pane of an engine at the station. Picture by Sachin

All the while, the sources said, the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel stood mute spectators.

Patna City SP Shivdeep Lande reached the spot along with a large group of constables who tried to disperse the mob, which had shattered the windscreens of several vehicles.

“The people continued pelting stones at the jawans and then at the police. They even tried to set afire railway equipment. But the policemen foiled their bid. The para-military jawans especially targeted media persons and many of them were beaten up badly. We heard some shots too,” another stall owner at the station said.

Seventy-year-old Shamsa Khatoon, a resident of Bakhtiyarpur in Patna, was at the railway station when the violence erupted. “The jawans pushed me mercilessly. I fell down and my head hit against the wall and it started bleeding. They would have trampled me had my grandson not been there. He pulled me away from them. The battle went on for at least an hour,” she said.

The stranded Janata Express finally resumed its journey around 11.25am with the jawans getting back to their coaches.

“The train had started to move once during the fight, but the chain was pulled again, probably by some jawans who were inside the train,” the local people said.