Timer device found near railway track in Patiala

No official word was available on the incident till late in the evening though the GRP ASI is said to have rushed to the Shambhu railway station and informed the GRP authorities. Senior officers of the district, including Deputy Commissioner Jasbir Singh Bir and Senior Superintendent of Police Parampal Singh Sidhu were amongthose who visited the site at around 4 am.

According to sources, traffic on the line was stopped immediately and several Up and Down trains were held up for over two hours. Rail traffic was resumed at around 5 am.

The sources told The Indian Express that an HMT watch fitted with wires was attached to the explosive device and it was set at 2 a.m. Had the device not been detected and defused in time, it would have caused a major tragedy, railway authorities said. The device was said to have been lying near the first pillar of the Ghaggar bridge.

Experts of the Forensic Science Laboratory who visited the site are believed to have confirmed that the explosive material packed in cardboard boxes kept inside the bag was RDX.

A case under Sections 4/5 of the Explosive Act has been registered at the GRP Police Station here and investigations are in progress.

Though an Additional Director General of Police, Inspector General of Police and Assistant Inspector General of Police, all belonging to theGeneral Railway Police, are based in Patiala, none of them made themselves available to the press for comments.

However, it is said that senior GRP officers, along with police officers of the district, held a long meeting to take stock of the situation in the wake of recovery of the time device.

Patiala Deputy Commissioner Jasbir Singh Bir, when contacted, confirmed that a bag containing explosives was found from near the railway track. He said that he got information about this late in the night. And he had visited the spot last night itself.

Bir said that army authorities at Patiala and at Chandimandir had been alerted in view of the recovery of the explosive device. He, however, refused to divulge further details.

AMBALA: Passengers were stranded for about two hours today after the Railways suspended movement of trains on both Up and Down lines here.

There was movement of trains from 3 to 5 a.m. but all trains going beyond Ghaggar were halted.

Following the suspension, the trains weredelayed and arrived behind the scheduled time. The trains hit by the delay included — The Flying Mail, Delhi-Amritsar Super Express and others.

Meanwhile, the state government and the Railway Police, who had launched a special drive to search the trains, intensified their drive to check passengers.

The Railway Police SP, A. S. Ahlawat, said he had issued instructions for checking passengers and their luggage.