Navi Mumbai: Six boys, who ended up being detained by the Government Railway Police (GRP) and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) after their co-passenger misunderstood a WhatsApp message, were given a clean chit and released on Tuesday.
The madrasa students from Kerala alighted from a train at Panvel on Monday, and were travelling to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in a suburban train. They were detained by the GRP at Kurla Railway Station after a co-passenger informed the police about suspicious activity.
“One of the six boys WhatsApped a friend about having reached Mumbai, and instead of writing ‘Bombay’, he typed ‘Bomb’. The word made the co-passenger suspicious, and he informed the police. After the Kurla GRP interrogated the boys, they handed them over to us,” Senior Police Inspector Suresh Patil from the Vashi GRP said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The boys were travelling to CST to board a train to Ratnagiri. They were headed to Rajapur for a month-long course in Urdu. “We checked with the institute the boys mentioned, and it confirmed that they were indeed students who were on their way to join the course. After we verified that they were innocent, the ATS carried out an inquiry and gave them clean chit,” Mr. Patil said.
The police checked the boys’ luggage and found nothing suspicious. “The boys left for Rajapur on Tuesday, and they will continue with their course as they had planned,” he said.