Jaunpur train bombing

On 28 July 2005, an explosion destroyed a carriage of the Shramjeevi Express train as it travelled between Jaunpur and Delhi in Uttar Pradesh, India. The blast occurred at approximately 5:15 pm and was traced to a bomb placed in a carriage toilet, using the military-grade explosive RDX. The train's crew managed to halt the engine quickly, which prevented the train from derailing after the explosion. Passengers and local residents assisted the wounded while emergency services worked to extinguish the burning carriage.

Thirteen people were killed in the blast or died later from their injuries. A further 50 people required medical treatment, with several undergoing amputations as a result of their injuries. RDX, the explosive used in the bombing, had previously been used in other attacks on Indian targets, including the Ayodhya train bombing in June 2000.

Eyewitnesses reported that two young men had boarded the train at Jaunpur carrying a white suitcase. Shortly after boarding, both men leaped from the moving train into nearby fields without their suitcase. A few minutes later, the carriage was struck by the explosion.

Investigating officials concluded that an accidental explosion was highly unlikely and attributed the attack to Islamist extremists. In January 2024, nearly two decades after the bombing, two operatives of the militant organization Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami were sentenced to death for carrying out the attack. According to the available account, the organizer of the attack was a man from Bangladesh, who was assisted by a man from West Bengal, India.

This dossier is based on a Wikipedia summary of the incident, which itself cites contemporaneous reporting from BBC News and the Indian Express, along with Russian-language news reports on the incident and subsequent investigation. The two individuals sentenced in 2024 are not named in the source material available for this dossier and are therefore not identified here.