Several train passengers, many of them sleeping, were robbed by armed men early this morning at a railway station in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur. The gang attacked three trains that had stopped just outside the station, waiting to enter.
The Vaishali Express, the Lokmanya Tilak Express and a local train were attacked around dawn. It is not clear how the robbers entered the coaches, which are usually double-barred for night journeys.
“I was sleeping…when I woke up, I saw four men with knives and guns,” said Lala, a passenger with his head bandaged from a knife wound.
“They snatched bags, purses, wallets…One man held a knife on me and another snatched my bag and mobile,” he said.
A few others were also injured.
After going from train to train looting passengers, the men ran away.
“Our trains were at Kanpur outer near a bridge. I saw a passenger stabbed in his thigh,” said Railway policeman Shyamvrat Singh Yadav.
Uttar Pradesh’s Akhilesh Yadav government is facing opposition attacks over crime in the state, where elections will be held in a few months.
