Patna,(BiharTimes): The way the national news channels and dailies in New Delhi and other news centres outside Bihar highlighted the Maoists attack near Jamui clearly suggests that media, in general, has changed its stand on the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar.

Most of the private news channels made it the first news and extensively covered it. The dailies from the national capital also made it the first page news or even made it the lead story. Three pesons, including a policeman, was killed in the attack on Dhanbad-Patna Inter-City on June 13.

Contrast this with the April 2008 daring attack on Jhajha railway station in the same Jamui district. Jhajha is an important station on Howrah-New Delhi Main Line and several express and mail trains stop there.

Yet the Maoists, said to be 200 in number, attacked it, ransacked the police station on the station, looted arms and killed six of them. Those who lost their lives included two Special Auxiliary Police, two Government Railway Police, one Railway Protection Force personnel. Besides, one railway porter was also killed in the incident.

The Naxals raided GRP armoury and looted 45 fire-arms, including 27 rifles, six SLR and two carbines. They also decamped with 898 rounds of ammunition.

The attack on the busy Howrah-New Delhi Main Line threw railway traffic out of gear and even Rajdhani Express was detained for hours.

In spite of the fact the national media then underplayed this news.

In contrast the media on Thursday questioned the failure of the state government and intelligence and asked as to how the state government failed to launch any campaign against the ultras.

Some of the channels even highlighted the letter written by the Union Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh to the chief secretary of Bihar, Ashok Kumar Sinha, and how the state government ignored it.

This is not the first attack on the railway property in this very section, though it is also true that the Maoists directly attacked train in Bihar for the first time on June 13.

They have targeted railways elsewhere in the state too. Once they even tried to derail Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express on Howrah-New Delhi Grand Chord Line near Paraiya in Gaya district.

This is the first time in the Nitish Kumar government that the national media paid so much attention to this incident.

They even under-played the killing of eight policemen and abduction of three others in neighbouring Lakhisarai district in August-September 2010 though the hostage drama lasted for over a week.

Is it that the Nitish Kumar government has started feeling the heat of the media? Or is it the fall out of the Sukma massacre in Chhattisgarh in which over two dozen Congress leaders lost their lives?

Incidentally, this is the first time that a senior mediaperson was travelling in the train which was targeted. The special correspondent of the Times of India, Pranava Kumar Chaudhary, told BiharTimes in detail as to how he personally saw young men and women (Naxals), with their faces covered, attacking the train with sophisticated guns and grenades. “For full two hours death stared before us,” he said after his arrival at Patna late on Thursday night.