Masked arsonists forced passengers off an Athens subway train and then set it alight last week. Several carriages of two trains were destroyed, but nobody was injured.
The attack occurred at the subway station in Kifissia shortly after 1 a.m last Tuesday morning
A group of around 30 arsonists wearing masks torched six wagons of a train on the ISAP line at Kifissia. Police said the masked arsonists forced a group of about eight passengers on one train car to get off and then doused the carriage, along with another five, with gasoline before using Molotov cocktail bombs to set them alight.
Witnesses said the assailants grabbed the train driver and locked him up with the female station master in the station master’s cabin.
They also attacked a second, empty train.
Thirty firefighters with 10 fire trucks eventually extinguished the blaze, but the attack destroyed six carriages on one train and damaged three on the second train, authorities said.
A group calling itself Gangs of Conscience claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was avenging the attack on Constantina Kuneva, the head of the cleaners unions in Attiki, who was seriously injured when assailants threw acid on her in December.
“Sabotage will regain the place it deserves,” said the statement issued by the group, believed to be behind arson attacks on two Attica police stations.