VIJAYAWADA: A passenger opened fire at another in the general compartment of the Tamil Nadu-bound Kanyakumari Express when the train was about to leave from platform No.6 in the railway station on Tuesday.

Panic gripped the station in the afternoon with people on the platform running helter-skelter.

Deputy Superintendent of Police of the Government Railway Police (GRP) B. Vijaya Kumar said the incident occurred at 12.55 p.m. Ajay Samal (28) of Balasore of Orissa was accused of opening fire at Sanjay Rawat alias Prasanth Das (35) of the same place in the compartment.

A bullet pierced through the left shoulder of Das, who bled profusely. He was admitted to the Government General Hospital (GGH) here and his condition was said to be stable. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the GRP personnel caught the accused person when he was trying to flee from the station and recovered a country-made shotgun and a live cartridge from his possession.

Not much information

Samal and Das were part of a five-member group of labourers from Balasore and were on their way to Tamil Nadu in search of a livelihood.

Mr. Kumar said that the firing ensued after a heated exchange between the duo in the train. "They picked up an altercation over financial matters at the Visakhapatnam railway station. Their friends Vishnu Mohan Rao, Akshay Kumar and Abhay Kumar tried in vain to separate them," he said. He, however, said the police could not elicit any information from the accused person, as he did not know any other language except Oriya, while the police too could not converse in Oriya.

Mr. Kumar said that all the five persons did not buy tickets. Therefore, the police were not sure where exactly the group boarded the train and where were they planning to go. "Though the accused claimed that he snatched the gun from Das and opened fire at him, we have our doubts. None of the three others is uttering even a word, except pleading innocence," he said.

The RPF and GRP staff on guard duties went rushing to the train on hearing the sound of gunshot from the compartment. Even as they surrounded the compartment, Samal managed to run from the scene but rickshaw-pullers and porters helped the police nab him. A couple of constables went to Das's rescue and shifted him to the GGH.

RPF constables B.D. Bhaskar and N. Malakondayya, eyewitnesses to the firing, said Samal kept the gun in his side pocket and ran towards the main entrance. But he was surrounded by porters and rickshaw-pullers, who thought that he was a thief.

The police were questioning Samal and his three friends, besides tracking their antecedents with the help of the Balasore police.

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