New Delhi:
It took less than 10 hours for NDTV's Joydeep Ray to find some of the men involved in holding a Rajdhani train hostage on Monday for 5 hours. Travelling into the forests between Jhargram and Banstala in West Bengal, Joydeep met Dhanpati Mahato, a senior leader of the PCPA or People's Committee Against Police Atrocities.
Mahato said he was one of the senior people who plotted and executed the attack. 200 armed men had stopped the train on its way from Bhubaneswar to Delhi. The 1200 passengers and 2 train drivers on board were freed only when central reserve police forces arrived in the area after 7 pm, forcing the PCPA's members to take cover in the forests nearby.
After that, two FIRs were filed but against unknown people. It remains unclear why the railway police are not able to take specific names. But they say that after watching the NDTV interview with Mahato, they are now combing the same area that the NDTV correspondent visited to find those who openly acknowledge their role in the train-jacking.
Mahato told NDTV, "We thought if we stopped the train, the District Railway Magistrate or some other officials would come. The PCPA has never stopped trains before...we wanted to warn the Centre."