New Delhi:
None of the 1,200 passengers who boarded the Bhubaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani Express on Tuesday forenoon had ever imagined that this could possibly be the longest journey of their lives. They finally arrived in Delhi on Wednesday evening - nine hours late, but safe. The entire nation had watched them held hostage by Naxals for 7 hours, live on television.
Just a few minutes before Bansthala on Tuesday afternoon, a stone hit the moving train and smashed the window next to Himanshu Kala and his family.
"A splinter hit my eye, and I almost blacked out. I hoped the train would keep moving, but it had stopped," recalled Himanshu, as he finally got off the train at New Delhi. "Tribals had boarded the train and locked the entire compartment. They started breaking the windows," he adds.
Mithilesh Kalia saw them holding bows, arrows and knives. "They asked us to get off the train, along with our luggage." Kalia mustered enough courage to ask them why they were doing this. "We will not harm you. They have arrested one of our leaders. Once all of you are off the train, we will burn it," explained the Naxal - a lady.
"We were afraid. They had a thousand weapons. When the train first stopped and I got off, there were no security personnel around. The drivers had been kidnapped," another passenger, Amit Kumar Jenna, told NDTV.
By evening, things seemed less dangerous. "At 6:30 pm, they asked us to get back on board the train. We sat there with no news, no idea what was happening. An hour later, the CRPF finally arrived, and we felt safe," said a relieved Jenna.
More than 24 hours after the hijack, the Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express finally arrived in Delhi. Tired and shaken, hundreds of passengers left the train with a thankful prayer for having reached their destination alive. But the memory of this ordeal will stay with them forever.