Police deny attacks on Abuja-Kaduna train


Some bandits on Thursday attacked an Abuja-bound train near Katari village in the Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

It was gathered that the train, which left the Rigasa Train Station, was attacked at Katari, a few kilometres to Abuja at 10am.

It was learnt that the windows of Coach SP12 attached to the train were shattered.



“Coach SP 12 attached to the train from Kaduna was shattered by gunshots.” a source, who was a passenger, told newsmen.

“There was panic everywhere among the passengers. It was something that nobody could explain but we are trusting in God that something would be done by security operatives to curtail this unfortunate incident,” he said, adding that no life was lost during the incident.

The Kaduna State Police Command has, however, debunked the claims.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Yakubu Abubakar, said the command was not informed of any attack.

He said the management of the Nigerian Railway Corporation had not reported such incident to them.

“When I contacted the management of the railway station, I was told that the story was baseless,” he said.

Contacted, the Nigerian Railway Corporation said the attack was not done by gunmen as no gunshot was fired at any of its coaches.

It, however, stated that one of the coaches of its Thursday morning Abuja bound train was pelted with stones by unidentified boys in Kaduna, adding that the security personnel on the train debunked claims of gunshot.

The Managing Director, NRC, Fidet Okhiria, told newsmen that there was no attack on the corporation’s service by gunmen.

He said, “It is not an attack by gunmen, rather some boys threw stones and it hit one of the coaches.”

When told that some passengers claimed that one of the coaches received gunshots, Okhiria replied, “There was no gunshot at any of our coaches this morning. If it were gunshots, the glasses would have been shattered and it might lead to a derailment. We are still running our trains as scheduled. If there was a gunshot or something like that we would have stopped.”

Okhiria insisted that claims of gunshots on one of the coaches were false, adding that the policemen on the train reported that only stones were thrown at the coach.
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