Train hijack hoax creates a flutter, inquiry ordered

Two railway drivers created a flutter here by claiming that the Delhi-Ranchi Express had been hijacked but it turned out to be a hoax and officials said the incident was a fallout of "rivalry" between two workers unions.
      
Railways and security officials went into a tizzy as drivers Manoj Singh and Shafeek Alam claimed that they were scheduled to drive the Ranchi-bound Garib Rath to Kanpur but two other drivers had hijacked it from Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi on Wednesday evening.

As soon as the train reached Kanpur, the railway police detained its drivers Harswaroop and Rameshvar for questioning but they were released after it turned out that there was no hijacking and the two had been assigned to take the train to Kanpur from Delhi.

An inquiry has been ordered into the incident.

"The ruckus was a result of the rivalry between the drivers unions of the Kanpur and Delhi divisions," Chief PRO (Railways) D Bajpayee said on Thursday.
  
Singh and Alam of the Kanpur division were scheduled to take the train only from Kanpur to New Delhi and created the drama as they wanted extra allowances, he claimed

A railway driver is paid allowances according to the distance he covers.

Denying that the train had been hijacked, deputy chief traffic manager Manoj Sinha said in case of any emergency, the train can be stopped anywhere on the route by disconnecting the electricity supply to it.