Train to nowhere

It is always something that happens to others. Or then it is just another news item reflecting the times under the by-now familiar headin...

It is always something that happens to others. Or then it is just another news item reflecting the times under the by-now familiar heading 8211; Bomb Hoax.8217; But when you hear of it taking place on something as well-acquainted as the Deccan Queen, you realise that there is more to the incident than merely a statement of fact. There is panic, there is fear, and most of all, there is the feeling of helplessness in the face of such a crisis. Which is what all passengers aboard the Deccan Queen DQ must have felt on the night of March 10 when a bomb scare threw the otherwise punctual train8217;s schedule haywire.

The clock struck 5.10 p.m. when the DQ rolled out of Mumbai8217;s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus CST on March 10, only to come to an unscheduled halt about an hour later at Thane. Recollects Anil Shah, a frequent commuter travelling in the A/C chair-car compartment that night, 8220;We were asked to alight on the platform with our luggage, and though nothing else was revealed, we guessed that something was amiss.

8220;We were still trying to decide why the train had stopped when a girl came running to the window of our compartment and started crying out to her grandmother to get out as there was a bomb scare. Pandemonium ensued as everyone scrambled to their feet, trying to grab hold of their luggage and run out of the train,8221; adds another passenger Anil Mehta. 8220;In their hurry, they almost created a stampede as they rushed toward the door, even pushing aside a handicapped person.8221;

In about 10 minutes, all the passengers were off-loaded on the platform. In half an hour, the platform was swarming with police personnel and a dog squad. By then, the railway authorities had announced that they were investigating a phone call received by them at CST control room where the caller claimed to have put a bomb in one of the chair-car compartments.It was panic once again as some passengers charged out of the platform to put a safe distance between them and the train. Most, however, continued to loiter on the platform as the police swung into action and carried a thorough search of the train, an exercise that took almost two hours. 8220;No bomb was discovered. Around 7.45 p.m., the railway authorities announced that it had been a hoax and we could now board the train safely. However, many passengers had already left, either by the Mahalaxmi Express, that had come in the meantime, or by road,8221; adds Shah. Thus, a visibly less-crowded DQ chugged into the Pune Railway Station around 10.30 p.m., two hours behind arrival time.

8220;The last time I remember something like this happening on the DQ was in 1993. But that call had come while the train was still in Mumbai. Even that turned out to be a hoax,8221; adds Susesh Patel, another frequent commuter.

However, according to A.K. Verma, divisional railway manager, Central Railways, such scares are rare on inter-city trains. 8220;In the past one and a half years, I can recollect at least three incidents of bomb scares in our division that turned out to be hoaxes, but all of them were on long-distance trains,8221; he explains. 8220;But whenever the railways get such a call, a search is carried out. However, my understanding is that halting the train alongside a platform full of passengers who have alighted from it is as dangerous as their being in it, in case of an actual bomb being planted. But taking it to an isolated spot also hinders the search operation. So one has to choose between the lesser of the two evils. For sometime now, I have been talking to the authorities to try and expedite operations in such cases, but they say that an exercise that normally takes seven to eight hours has already been speeded up to finish in two or three hours. And that it is impossible to get more efficient than that.8221;Incidentally, none of the hoax calls have ever been successfully traced nor the caller nabbed.

8220;As if the stone-throwing incidents injuring passengers were not bad enough, passengers now have these bomb scares to grapple with,8221; adds Mehta wryly. Turning a simple four-hour journey into a veritable nightmare.