Two people were killed as Maoist rebels went on a rampage Sunday setting vehicles ablaze and blowing up a railway station in eastern India during a strike to protest the recent arrest of their leaders, media reports said. Guerrillas belonging to the banned Communist Party of India burned 13 trucks and two buses in the southern Gaya district of Bihar state, the Press Trust of India reported quoting official sources. The report said a policeman and a bus driver were killed in the crossfire between the state police and armed rebels who had set fire to six trucks on a highway. Six people were also injured in the attack and were admitted at a state-run hospital in Gaya, the IANS news agency reported. In the neighbouring state of Jharkhand, a group of 30 Maoists blew up a railway station in the northern Palamau district late Saturday night disrupting train services. No one was injured as the employees and some passengers were evacuated before the Maoists exploded the bombs. In another incident in the northern Girdih district, the rebels blasted a railway track. Railway officials said the militants had abducted the gateman on duty before blowing the track but set him free later. The rebels called a day-long strike in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh states, to protest against the recent arrest of their leaders including the chief of northern states, Tushar Kant Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya, wanted in several criminal cases in six Indian states, was arrested by the police in Bihar state capital Patna last week.
