Rahul Gandhi’s austerity journey from Ludhiana to New Delhi was marred by an incident of stone throwing. The incident took place near Panipat at around 2130 hrs IST on Tuesday when stone was thrown to Amritsar-Delhi Swarn Shatabdi Express.

Fortunately the stone did not injure anyone.

The stone damaged the window panes of coaches C-2, C-4 and C-7 and the attack created panic and uncertainty.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi was travelling in coach C-3.

“We are shocked and shaken. This has been done on purpose,” one of the passengers remarked.

The Railway Police admitted that such attacks are not uncommon. One of the Railway Police said, “These things keep on happening. Children often pelt stone at trains.”

V Kamraj, Inspector General, said, “Everything is possible. We cannot rule out any possibility. Whatever may be the case it will be known only in the morning once we conduct the investigation.”

The Special Protection Group (SPG) that accompanied Rahul Gandhi patrolled all the coaches after this incident till the train reached Delhi.