Maoists set ablaze a rail office at Banshipur station in Lakhisarai district after taking eight officials hostages and blew up a block office in neighbouring Munger on the second and final day of their two-day shutdown in Bihar.
In a midnight attack, around 150 ultras stormed the railway station in the important Patna-Kiul-Jhajha section under the Danapur division of the East Central Railway and torched a railway panel room besides destroying the traffic control system, railway officials said.
Rail traffic in the section was halted for over six hours as a result, they said, adding the ultras stormed the station and took six railway officials, the station master and assistant station master on duty as hostages but let them off after warning them of dire consequences if they did not follow the extremists' diktat to stop movement of trains during their agitation, the officials said.
In neighbouring Munger district, over 100 ultras assembled at a block office building at Sangrampur and detonated dynamites blasting the construction in the wee hours today, officials said.
Portions of the building collapsed in the powerful explosion which also destroyed furniture and gutted land revenue related documents.
