NEW DELHI , India ( CNN ) -- Suspected Maoist rebels in eastern India who held up a train carrying 300 passengers Wednesday ended their siege after a four-hour standoff , officials said . An election official in Maharashtra Wednesday . Maoist rebels seized the train as India continued to vote . No one was hurt , said A.K . Chandra of India 's east-central railway . The suspected rebels seized the train , apparently to protest that some former comrades are taking part in general elections that are under way in the country . The Maoists did n't want the former rebels `` to join the mainstream and , therefore , stopped this train , '' said Sarvendu Tathagat , deputy commission of the Latehar district in the state of Jharkhand . Jharkhand is a mineral-rich state where rebels -- known as the Naxalites -- claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor and the dispossessed who have not benefited from the state 's resources . About 300 men , apparently unarmed , boarded the train , disabling its braking system as it passed through a dense forest . The hijackers released the train after `` persuasion '' by area villagers and railway officials , Chandra said . `` They wanted your ( media ) presence , '' he said of the hijackers ' possible motive . Jharkhand has seen stepped-up deadly attacks by rebels while the country is in the midst of month-long general elections . The second round of the elections begin Thursday . On April 16 , when the voting began , suspected rebels triggered an explosion that forced a bus carrying border security troops to stop in the same Latehar district . When the troops stepped out , the attackers killed at least six in a three-hour gun battle . And in neighboring Bihar state , suspected Maoists , who had called for a general strike , set eight trucks on fire , shot dead a driver , and blew up a government office on Wednesday , police said . The Maoist insurgency has claimed more than 6,000 lives since the late 1960s . Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the rebels India 's biggest security threat . The elections , covering more than 3 million square kilometers of the planet , will run until next month in several stages of scattered polling . Then , elections officials will count the vote electronically in a single day -- on May 16 , three days after the last round of polling . It is an exercise that India undertakes every five years for its 1 billion-plus population . This year , the country is voting in 543 boroughs of the Lok Sabha , or the lower house of the Indian parliament . In the elections this year , 714 million registered voters are eligible to cast ballots . The number is up 43 million from the last vote .
300 suspected Maoist rebels stop train as it passed through a forest in Jharkhand . Score: 6 Train was `` stopped , '' not hijacked in region that has seen rebel attacks . Maoist insurgency has claimed more than 6,000 lives since the late 1960s . Incident comes as India is in the midst of month-long general elections .