Bhubaneswar, April 18: The Government Railway Police (GRP) have launched a massive manhunt to arrest the members of the mob involved in the burning of a train compartment and ransacking of Delang railway station in Puri yesterday.

A mob set a bogey of the Puri-Barbil-Paradip Express on fire and vandalised the station master's office, along with the ticket counter, at the railway station yesterday following death of a youth on Thursday evening.

The deceased, Ratikant Chhatoi, 24, of Gualipada was crushed under the wheels of this train while trying to get down from the moving locomotive. The local people had been demanding a stop of this train at the station, and to press for their demands, they took to violence following the accidental death of a local youth.

Deputy superintendent of police (GRP), Khurda Road, Debendra Kumar Das said they had received a complaint from the station superintendent. Besides, they were also conducting an investigation into the unnatural death case registered by the GRP following the youth's accidental death.

"Our primary duty was to restore normality at the railway station that had been badly damaged by the mob. We, therefore, were busy in arranging things. We will conduct investigation into both the cases. We will identify the people involved in the criminal activity of setting the bogey on fire, and the manhunt will start from today," said Das.

Since the station does not have any CCTVs installed, the police officials would take the eyewitnesses' help to identify the criminals, who had set the train afire.

A GRP official said that over two platoons of railway police and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) had been deployed at the station to keep an eye on the situation and thwart any further violence. The senior official said the forces would remain deployed at the station till the situation became totally normal.