A hoax call by an unidentified person created panic among the passengers of Mysuru-Ajmer Express. For nearly three hours, the train was at Desur Railway Station on Londa-Miraj Section of South Western Railways, about 11 km from Belagavi city on Wednesday afternoon.
Passengers and the railway officials heaved a sigh of relief after it was declared that there was neither any bomb or explosive on board.
The panic button was pressed when an unidentified person called the control room of Railway Protection Force (RPF) at Pune in the afternoon claiming that a bomb had been planted in the train. The RPF panicked and informed the authorities concerned and station masters of station along the train’s route till Sangli, Maharashtra. By then, the train had passed Khanapur in Belagavi.
The train was stopped at Desur, where a bomb disposal squad with two sniffer dog squads and personnel from RPF and senior officials from SWR, Hubballi division, rushed and conducted a thorough search for nearly three hours.
The passengers, who were caught unawares when the RPF personnel also started checking baggage and their belongings, came out of the coaches in panic after they got to know that they (RPF) were looking for a bomb. While some alighted in a hurry, others helped the elderly and co-passengers to get off the train.
After the call was declared as a hoax, the train proceeded at around 5 p.m. The train that was forced to stop for four hours was already running three hours behind schedule.
Dummy grenades
Even as the officials were preparing for the departure of the train, a RPF personnel found a wooden box containing a few dummy hand grenades from on Venu M.R., a subedar of the Army’s 1890 Rocket Regiment in Rajasthan, who was travelling along with two of his colleagues.
SWR’s Divisional Security Commissioner V.S. Mallikarjuna told The Hindu that the army personnel were allowed to continue their journey after verification from their concerned unit that the dummy hand grenades were used for training purposes.
