Lucknow, Dec 1 (IANS): A chief ticket inspector (CTI) of the Indian Railways has been shot dead on board the Mahananda Express, between Ghaziabad and New Delhi, police said Saturday.

The incident took place late Friday when unidentified assailants shot Kifayatullah in the stomach when he sought to see their tickets.

Hailing from Moradabad, the railway official was on duty on the Mahananda Express which runs between West Bengal and New Delhi. He was taken to the Guru Teg Bahadur hospital in New Delhi, where he died at around 10.30 p.m. due to excessive blood loss.

Railway officials told IANS that the incident took place near the Sahibabad station when the official was checking tickets.

A group of young men had a verbal spat with him and it turned ugly soon after. One of them whipped out a pistol and shot the railway official in his stomach. They then escaped.

Shocked passengers pulled the emergency chain and informed the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel on train.

When the train chugged into the Shahdra station, railway officials wheeled out the bleeding CTI and took him to hospital.

During treatment, the injured official said he had an altercation with some youngsters as they were not travelling with tickets. He could not speak further, an official said.

"A hunt is on for the assailants," Pankaj Lawaniya, GRP in-charge of Ghaziabad told IANS, adding that the passengers were being questioned.

Train travel has increasingly become scary in Uttar Pradesh, with more than half-a-dozen cases of eve teasing and violence reported in the last six months from trains plying across the state.