A major tragedy was averted on Friday when security forces detected and defused a powerful bomb planted inside a sleeper coach of a train at Guwahati railway station in Assam. The bomb, which was kept in a steel container and concealed inside a bag, was fitted with a programmable timer device to trigger the blast.
The police said the bag in which bomb was concealed was detected inside the S-5 coach of Kanchenjunga Express. It was recovered soon after the train from Sealdah arrived in Guwahati at about 5.15 am.
Guwahati railway police officers said, “It was during a routine check of the train that security personnel spotted the bag lying below seat number 22 of S-5 coach and raised an alarm by calling the bomb squad, which defused the bomb.” The police said passengers were asked quietly to vacate the platform in order to avoid any casualties. Senior police officers, who rushed to the railway station, said a militant group was involved but added, “It will take some time to identify the group behind this incident.”
The needle of suspicion is moving towards a fledgling militant outfit, the Adivasi People’s Army, which has stepped up its activities in Western Assam district where the bomb was suspected to have been planted.
Referring to the alert sent by the home ministry to the state police, other security sources did not rule out the possibility of Bodo rebels being involved. Friday’s incident comes soon after a security alert warning of subversive activity by the outlawed Ulfa and NDFB (anti-talks factions) targeting trains carrying passengers bound for the Ambubachi Mela at Kamakhya.
“Had it exploded it would have been disastrous as the sleeper coach in which the bomb was planted was crowded,” the police said, not ruling out the possibility of the militants failing to accurately time the device to explode.