KOLKATA/CHITTARANJAN: A
Gorkha Rifles jawan travelling on a train did not hesitate to
take on a gang of 30 armed dacoits
singlehandedly, armed with just a khukri, when he saw them looting
his fellow passengers. A GRP
escort team posted on the train reportedly did nothing to stop the
robbers on Maurya Express late on Thursday.
Nearly 30 armed dacoits looted cash and valuables worth `10 lakh
from passengers of Maurya Express between Kulti and Chittaranjan
stations along the West Bengal-Jharkhand border on Thursday
night.
The armed dacoits refused to mess with Vishnu Shresta when they
came to know that he is a soldier, but the 45-year-old Gorkha
Rifles jawan would not sit back and watch his fellow passengers
being manhandled and looted. The fearless Gurkha pulled out his
khukri
and fell upon the dacoits till he was overpowered. After a hurried
shot fired at him went astray, they used the same khukri to slash
Shresta's wrist.
Shresta is posted at Ranchi and was proceeding on leave to Pokhra
in Nepal. He
boarded the Hatia-Gorakhpur Jn Maurya Express from Ranchi on
Thursday evening. When the raid took place, he was fast asleep on
his berth.
"Suddenly, there were shouts and the sound of running feet,"
Shresta recounted from his bed at Kasturba Gandhi Hospital in
Chittaranjan. "Somebody pulled at my bedclothes. I sat up and found
a number of people standing near my feet. They demanded that I hand
over all my cash and valuables. There was confusion all around and
I shouted that I am an Indian Army jawan. The criminals backed off
and turned their attention to a woman and her child, who were on a
berth close by," Shresta added.
He lost his cool when he saw a miscreant trying to pull out the
girl, about 8 years old, from the berth and snatch a necklace from
her mother.
"I am a soldier and get paid to protect citizens of this country. I
could not sit back and watch as passengers were looted. I pulled
out my khukri and attacked the criminals. Initially, they were
taken by surprise and I succeeded in connecting with at least three
of them. The blows were severe and they must have got themselves
admitted to some hospital. By then, the criminals started fighting
back. They fired a shot that missed me. At one point of time, the
khukri fell from my hand and I was overpowered. They picked it up
and used it on me," the jawan said.
After Shresta slumped to the ground, profusely bleeding from his
wound, all fight went out from the other passengers. None of them
dared to make eye contact with the criminals and did their
bidding.
According to authorities, members of the gang were travelling on
the train posing as passengers. Around 11.25pm, about 10 minutes
after the train left Kulti station, the criminals detached the
vacuum hose between two coaches. This brought the train to a stop.
While some dacoits entered S1, S2 and S3 coaches, others smashed
the windows of the A1 and B1 air-conditioned compartments to gain
entry.
"The miscreants were shouting in Hindi. When they asked us to hand
over all our valuables, I gave them my purse and cellphone," said
Nilu Verma, who was on her way to Lakhisarai from Katras. Ajay
Srivastava was walking back to his berth from the toilet when he
was accosted by the criminals. "One of them snatched my cellphone
and asked me to hand over my wallet. As I took some time to react,
he slapped me and snatched my belongings," said Srivastava, who was
going to Muzaffarpur.
Anita Modi, on her way to Barauni, felt that the 15-20 minutes of
terror would never come to an end. "Passengers were beaten up and
abused. Even women were not spared. People were screaming but
nobody came to our assistance. When the train reached Chittaranjan,
we were feeling ill," she said.
Shresta said the criminals were in the late thirties and carrying
various types of weapons, including guns, daggers and tangis.
Strangely, railway staff on the train said they were not aware that
passengers had been robbed till they reached Chittaranjan. "We
shall discuss with the RPF and GRP on how to provide security on
night trains in this stretch," said G C Roy, senior divisional
commercial manager of Asansol.
Police succeeded in arresting six of the criminals and recovered a
part of the booty later. A manhunt has been launched for the
others. Asansol divisional railway manager Jagadanand Jha claimed
that there was a GRP escort on the train, but the personnel did
little to prevent the crime.