Jalpaiguri: Thousands of jobseekers from Bihar went berserk on Sunday morning blocking rail tracks and vandalising New Jalpaiguri railway station.
The candidates appeared in recruitment test for Group-D positions in West Bengal government. The written examination for the jobs was held all across West Bengal on Saturday.
Media reports said that a whopping 2.5 million candidates competed for 6,000 Group-D positions, lowest rung of employment in a government. Thousands of candidates were from Bihar.
According to police, trouble started at 6am when jobseekers returning to Bihar started boarding even reserved compartments of the Avadh-Assam Express at the New Jalpaiguri (NJP) railway station in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district.
As the passengers who had prior reservations complained, all hell broke loose.
The job aspirants climbed to the engine of the train forcing the Railway Protection Force (RPF) to resort to mild baton charge to disperse them.
But the vandals responded to cops’ action by blocking rail tracks, pelting stones at the train and damaging railway properties. They even uprooted a lamp post at platform number 3.
Though there is no report of any casualty, train services were disrupted for hours. Many trains, including the Rajdhani Express, were detained for hours at the station.
The blockade was lifted only after railways promised to run a special train to take them home, a senior railway officer said.
