The red banner planted by the rebels on the tracks in Banstala on Monday. Picture by Samir Mondal)

Midnapore, Sept. 27: People’s Committee activists held up two trains, including a Rajdhani from Orissa, in West Midnapore today by squatting on the tracks and pitching a banner across the line.

The Rajdhani Express from Bhubaneswar stood at Kharagpur station and the Mumbai-bound Geetanjali Express from Howrah waited at Balichak as the People’s Committee activists blocked the tracks and erected the banner at Banstala. Banstala is 30km from Kharagpur and 55km from Balichak.

The trains resumed their journeys at 6pm after the security forces inspected the tracks and gave the clearance.

On the second day of the People’s Committee’s two-day bandh in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia to protest the death of a Maoist in Saturday’s encounter with the joint forces in Binpur, the activists also blocked the state highway connecting Kharagpur with Purulia. They placed tree branches across the highway in at least 20 places along a 5km stretch running through the Kalaboni forest near Jhargram.

Railway employees alerted their superiors in Jhargram and Kharagpur about the tracks blockade. The authorities then informed the police. The People’s Committee activists left the spot apparently after receiving information that a joint forces team was approaching Banstala from a camp at Beltala, 10km away.

Mohammad Azhar, the railways’ senior divisional commercial manager, Kharagpur, said: “We did not take any chances after coming to know about the blockade at 1.15pm. We stopped the Rajdhani at Kharagpur at 3.05pm and the Geetanjali Express at Balichak at 3.18pm.”

The railways cancelled a Tatanagar-bound local train from Kharagpur.

At 4.30pm, the joint forces informed the railways the tracks were clear. However, the passengers of the cancelled local train held up the Rajdhani by blocking the tracks for over an hour, demanding that the authorities revoke the cancellation.