A 28-year-old man, suspected to be mentally unsound, threw stones at the Vande Bharat Express, damaging two of its windows, on Friday as the train was nearing Thrissur railway station, police said. The incident occurred around 9.30 am when the train was entering platform 2 of the station, an officer of Thrissur Railway Police Station said, adding that none of the passengers were injured. The Vande Bharat Express was going from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod.
This is the fourth such incident, with the last one being 2023 in August when Thiruvananthapuram Vande Bharat Express got damaged after stones were hurled by unidentified miscreants. Kerala got its's first Vande Bharat Express train on April 25 2023 connecting Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod. The train operates on six days except Thursday. It covers the 586 km long journey in eight hours and five minutes while halting at 14 railway stations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off Kerala’s first Vande Bharat train from the Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway station on April 25. There were protests by the United Democratic Front, an alliance in the state led by the Congress, seeking stops at the Tirur station in the Malappuram district.Tirur was also on the list of stops in the first reports as soon as the Vande Bharat train was announced. Later, it was left out when Shornur was included.