Railways and police authorities in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were on alert and security was tightened on Wednesday after a threat was received in Rajasthan to blow up various railway stations in the two States as well as Ujjain’s famous Mahakaleshwar Temple.
However, no suspicious object was found anywhere.
A handwritten letter was received by authorities at the Hanumangarh railway station, threatening to blow up several stations in the two States. The letter was written in the name of Pakistan-based terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad.
The letter received by the Hanumangarh station superintendent had a postal stamp with a post office code and something written in Gurmukhi script. The person giving the threat introduced himself as Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Jammu and Kashmir area commander and wrote that the outfit would take the revenge for the deaths in the Union Territory.
“We will bomb eight railway stations on October 30… We will paint Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with blood,” the letter said. The Rajasthan Police have sent the letter for forensic examination and launched a probe to find out the place from where it was sent.
Harshit Shrivastava, Chief Public Relations Officer, Western Central Railway (WCR), told The Hindu that that patrolling by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) was increased after the information about the threat was received. Most parts of Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Rajasthan’s Kota Division come under the WCR.
“We have also increased gathering intelligence inputs and paying attention to every detail,” he said.
In Rajasthan, the security was tightened at the railway stations in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Sriganganagar, Bundi, Alwar and Udaipur, besides Hanumangarh, as the letter threatened to blow up the station buildings at all these places.
The trains crossing and originating from the eight railway stations were thoroughly checked and the dog squads were called, while the vigilance was increased at the platforms and outside the ticket and reservation counters, according to the North-Western Railway sources. Both the State police and the GRP personnel were deployed at the railway stations.
RPF Senior Commandant, Bhopal Division, Prashant Yadav said that security measures were already underway due to the upcoming festival season.
“Whenever a threat is received concerning the Railways in any part of the country, all divisions and units are alerted to make arrangements. This is done to avoid any security-related incident, in case the specific threat is a diversion tactic,” he said, speaking to The Hindu.
“We have already started to increase our presence at stations and all sensitive locations. Track monitoring and patrolling frequency has also been increased. We are also properly checking the sleepers (concrete slabs below the tracks) to see if someone has messed with them,” Mr. Yadav said.
Mr. Yadav also said that about 200 trains operate from or cross through the Bhopal division and about 65 of them are considered of sensitive nature.
“The RPF and the GRP are closely monitoring and patrolling 40 and 25 trains, respectively, every day. We are also sensitising the train staff and have also alerted our informers,” he said.
Ujjain Superintendent of Police (SP) Pradeep Sharma said that the department got in touch with the Rajasthan Police after learning about the threat through the media. He said that a copy of the FIR has been sought from the Rajasthan Police.
Mr. Sharma said that security has been beefed up in and around the temple premises.
“A bomb squad will also carry out an inspection in the premises. We keeping conducting such checks regularly,” he said.
Published - October 02, 2024 03:41 pm IST
