Our Bureau/

Bhagalpur : Railways tall claims to provide better facilities to the passengers today exposed again after a group of passengers who  fell victims in the hands of robbers  inside a running train  during train robbery, compelled to travel more than 100 km to register their complain.

According to sources, the aggrieved passengers of Delhi bond 14055 Up Brahmaputra mail whose valuable articles were waylaid by gang of armed miscreants in the early hours today, had the opportunity to registered their complain with government railway police (GRP) at Bhagalpur station, more than 100 km from the place of occurrence, only when the train reached here. Despite the fact that important railway stations like Barharwa, Sahebganj and Kahalgaon on this stretch of Kiul-Sahebganj section are falling but the passengers only had the opportunity to inform the railway’s security agencies properly at Bhagalpur.

Sources from the office of superintendent of railway police  (SRP), Jamalpur, said that the incident had taken place near Harishchandrapur falling under the jurisdiction of Malda (Bengal). The sources however didn’t have  any appropriate reason why the concerned GRP of that areas failed to address the victim passengers there.

However, the sources further said that after the train proceeded from Malda, trouble had started as some passengers revealed that they had seen some unauthorized passengers who managed to enter inside the sleeper compartment at Malda.

According to the version of the passengers, soon the train  reached near Harischandrapur, heavy brick batting was started on the train from outside. “The unauthorized persons somehow vacuumed the train and soon the train was slow, more than dozen with weapons like country made pistols managed to entered inside S-6 and S-7 sleeper coaches. They started snatching the belongings of the passengers undisrupted  as no escort party of GRP was there. They also beaten some passengers mercilessly while some other passengers sustained injuries due to stone pelting,” some passengers narrated the incident before the SHO, Bhagalpur GRP station, Sudhir Kumar Singh this morning.

When the train reached at Bhagalpur this morning, passengers of the train started protesting against the incident and also against  failure of the railways security. However with the assurances of Bhagalpur GRP personnel who also managed the irate passengers, the train was moved to its destination.

However some of the victim passengers registered complain with Bhagalpur GRP. “We don’t know why we left in mess by authority concerned and no one even came to us after the incident,” said a passenger, Hari Singha of Manipur who was travelling on the train.

Singh said that, GRP Bhagalpur  has recorded the statement of the passengers. “Since the area of the incident is falling under the jurisdiction of Malda in Bengal, we could not do anything but we have forwarded the case to Malda GRP,” he told.