Stones were pelted on the Vande Bharat Express in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam on Wednesday, January 11. Two glass panes of the train were damaged and the incident happened when the coach was going to the maintenance centre at Marripalem from the Visakhapatnam railway station after the trial run was complete. The train is scheduled to be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 19. 

Speaking to India Today, District Railways Manager (DRM) Anup said that the incident occurred at 6:30 pm. Calling the incident unfortunate, he said the Railway Police have registered a case and investigations are underway. The DRM also said that a new rake for the train had come in from Chennai so they were conducting a trial run when the incident happened.

The train was set to be flagged off from the Secunderabad Railway Station by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The train is scheduled to operate between Secunderabad and Visakhapatnam covering the distance in nearly eight hours. The stops for this train include Warangal, Khammam, Vijayawada, and Rajahmundry.

In a similar incident, a Vande Bharat express from West Bengal was pelted with stones on Sunday, January 8. Due to this incident, the train’s operations were disrupted for 10 minutes at Bolpur’s railway station. The incident took place before reaching Malda station after crossing Bolpur station. No casualties were reported. 

In the same week, on January 2, another stone pelting incident on the Howrah-New Jalpaiguri Vande Bharat Express was reported from West Bengal’s Malda. This incident was recorded on a CCTV camera. Four people were seen throwing stones at the Vande Bharat Express. The glass door of a coach was damaged during the incident. West Bengal authorities initiated an investigation to nab the culprits.