A Robbery in a Running Train
Robberies or crimes are very frequent today. I had a bitter experience of the same.
Once I was going by Frontier Mail from Delhi to Amritsar. It was a cold night. The train was running at full speed. The trees, houses, poles were wheeling back. The stations were passing one after another. The train halted at only selected stations. Some persons were dozing, some others were reading novels, magazines and newspapers; some of them were playing cards, some were discussing important political matters and burning questions of the day and some of them were gossiping and chatting. The train was now heading for an important station of Shahabad Markanda.
All of a sudden I saw some persons quietly entering the compartment. They had rifles and sharp knives in their hands and had covered their faces with cloth. One of the dacoits ordered the passengers to raise their hands up or they would be shot dead. The faces of all passengers turned pale and without uttering a word, raised their hands. The dacoits took whatever they could and snatched whoever resisted. The women and children were crying but the dacoits turned a deaf ear to their cries and shrieks. One of the passengers resisted to give his valuables but soon they stabbed him to death. In the end, they pulled the chain and ran away in the jungle in the cover of darkness when the train stopped.
The guard came to our compartment and found the condition of the passengers miserable. He asked the reason from the weeping women and crying children. By the time many passengers had come out of their compartments and gathered outside our compartment. No one dared to chase the dacoits. The dead body of the passenger was removed and sent for the postmortem examination by the railway police.
It was a pathetic scene. I was cursing the time when I decided to go for this journey. I continuously thought about the dead passenger and his pathetic death. At the same time it was a narrow escape for all others including me.
The dacoits had run away with the looted booty. The police after searching here and there, left the idea of chasing them. The train again moved on. No one cared for the passengers who had been robbed.
