A court in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh sentenced two terrorists to death in the case of RDX blast in the Shramjeevi Express train with RDX in 2005. In that blast, 14 people were killed, and 62 people were injured. The blast in the Shramjeevi Express took place around 5.15 pm on the evening of 28th July 2005.

The two terrorists who have been sentenced to death are Hilal alias Helaluddin, a Bangladeshi terrorist associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul Islami (HUJI), and Nafikul Biswas of West Bengal. The case of these two has been argued for nearly six years, on which the verdict has now been pronounced. In the same case, in the year 2016, the court sentenced two other terrorists to death, whose hearing is pending in the High Court.

The blast incident took place on 28th July 2005, when the general coach of the Shramjeevi Superfast Express running between Rajgir and New Delhi was blown up. The blast took place near the Harpalganj railway crossing. It was revealed in the investigation that two terrorists kept a suitcase filled with RDX in the train and got down from the moving train. The explosion occurred shortly after both of them landed.

When this incident happened, the author of this article was only 14 years old and had entered the 15th year the evening before. In this article, we will know what was happening at the Sultanpur railway station when this incident took place.

28th July 2005, 5 p.m.

The Shramjeevi Express was scheduled to arrive a little late from its scheduled time. The train was a little late, but the weather was good. Since I had reached the platform of Sultanpur railway station barely 10 minutes earlier, I was okay with the train being late.

However, the restlessness was growing over the next 15 minutes. In those days, the train’s arrival time at Sultanpur was around 5:15 p.m. The Shramjeevi Express is famous for its punctuality except in winter. But the train did not arrive on time that day. It seemed that it would arrive on time. But for the next half an hour, there was no update about the train.

At 5:30 p.m.

People were annoyed due to the delay of the Shramjeevi Express. They started to gossip that some accident had happened with the train. In those days, not everyone would have a mobile phone like today. Even if someone had a mobile phone, it would have basic features. It was not an internet era. The facility of text messages were available in those days. Someone got information from a text message that there had been an accident with the train. But people did not have complete information about what had happened.

By 5:45 p.m., the situation was such that no one was visible on the platform. In these 30 minutes of my life, I have lived through the stress and seen the horror on people’s faces.

And the news of the blast appeared…

As soon as the blast was confirmed in the Shramjeevi Express, people at the Sultanpur railway station started running everywhere. Meanwhile, rumours spread that the blast was carried out to blow up Sultanpur railway station. Sultanpur where the RDX attack took place near Ayodhya a month before this incident had always been a high-profile area.

Rumours spread that the general coach of the Shramjeevi Express, which is the most crowded, had a time bomb in it. The bomb timings were the same as the arrival time of the train at Sultanpur railway station. The only thing discussed by the people was that Sultanpur had now come on the hit list of the terrorists.

All these things are also unforgettable for me because I was only 14 years old then. I thought of coming to Delhi by getting a general ticket. The explosion also happened in the general coach. In that coach, which would have stood in front of me if the train was on time. I would have been passing by those toilets in the coach to enter inside. Imagine how shaken I must have been to know that if the train had been on time, I might have died in the blast.

I left the station around 6 p.m. and was passing by the district hospital. Police had arrived and were deployed everywhere. Safe corridors were also being marked. Since both Jaunpur and Sultanpur were the nearest cities to Harpalganj, the injured were sent to Jaunpur, and the seriously injured to Varanasi.

Some people were also being brought by the locals to Sultanpur District Hospital on their own. Gradually panic spread in the city. People locked themselves in their homes. I somehow managed to catch a minibus from the Sultanpur bus stand to my village. Thursday, 28th July 2005. It’s a date that will always be remembered.

Detailed information was seen in the newspapers on the next day

It was Friday morning. Very few houses in the village used to get a newspaper till 8-9 o’clock. That too is often delayed in the village. In the morning, detailed news was received that the Shramjeevi Express had been blown up with RDX. In this blast, the coach was blown away. More than 5 dozen people were badly injured, while a dozen people were killed. If the accident had happened at Sultanpur railway station, where dozens of others like me were ready to board the coach that was blown up, the number of dead and injured would be multiple times higher than this.

RDX was a common explosive used in numerous terrorist attacks leading up to 2005. For the generation that has come of age in the past decade, the terror associated with RDX might be hard to comprehend. However, back then, reports of explosions were frequent across the country. The following year saw a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai trains. Since then, thankfully, such incidents have markedly decreased. But the 2005 terrorist attack still profoundly disturbed me during each attack, stirring memories of the fear and anxiety I experienced 18 years ago.

Now that the 4 terrorists associated with this terrorist attack have been sentenced to death, there is some peace in the mind. However, it took a long time to get justice. Nobody knows when these terrorists will be hanged. I do not even know the condition of those who were killed in that blast, or those who were badly injured, and their families. Hearing this news might have stirred deep emotions in them, rekindling the terror and distress they once endured.