An unclaimed bag containing two suspicious small sealed boxes painted in blue colour sparked a bomb scare on the Mumbai bound Konark express following which the train was checked twice at Madhira and Khammam railway stations for nearly 45 minutes before being allowed to leave on Saturday morning.
Some passengers travelling in S-11 coach of the Konark Express bound for Mumbai from Bhubaneswar sounded an alert after they noticed a suspicious bag lying unattended under a berth of their compartment when the train approached Madhira railway station, police sources said.
Bag removed
The Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel recovered the suspicious bag soon after the train was stopped at the Madhira railway station and moved it away to an open field nearby.
The train proceeded to Khammam railway station where it was thoroughly checked by a joint team of GRP, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the local police personnel for about half-an-hour.
The passengers of the long distance train had spent anxious moments on the crowded platform at the railway station during the anti-sabotage checks.
Clearance given
The train then headed towards its destination after getting clearance from the authorities concerned, sources added.
In Madhira town, the local police cordoned off the area where the seized boxes have been kept for examination by specialised units of the bomb disposal squads from Hyderabad for detection of explosives, if any, stored in the two boxes, one of them resembling a battery.
The sealed boxes will be opened by the expert teams soon after their arrival here late at night and we have made all arrangements for defusing explosives, if any detected, in a safe manner, said a police officer, who is part of a team supervising the task.
