Man on a trip to Shimla lands in jail after bomb hoax call to delay train

Kolkata: A 54-year-old Murshidabad resident, Pradipan Bhattacharjee, who had planned a trip to Shimla with his wife was arrested on Saturday for allegedly triggering a major bomb scare on the Howrah-Amritsar Mail that he was supposed to board.On April 10, as the couple rushed towards Howrah Railway Station, they realised they were late. By the time they reached the platform, the 13005 UP Howrah-Amritsar Mail already departed, and in an attempt to stop the train, he called the Railways Helpline 139 and logged a false report on the Rail Madad platform, claiming a bomb had been planted on the very train he had just missed. In a swift investigation, the Railways, RPF and Howrah Govt Railway Police arrested Bhattacharjee, alias Deepak Samle, a resident of Berhampore. He was apprehended at Patna railway station within 12 hours of making the fake complaint. Bhattacharjee was produced before the ACJM Court in Howrah on Sunday. The police moved a prayer for his custody to "unearth the motive and background" behind the threat that paralysed train services for hours. The court allowed five days of police remand for the accused.The fake bomb tip-off triggered an immediate security protocol. The train was intercepted and brought to a halt at Chandanpur railway station, near Kamarkundu, under the Howrah GRP District. A 40-member force, including Bomb Detection and Disposal Squads (BDDS) and four specialised dog squads, rushed to the scene. Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel, sniffer dogs and advanced bomb-detection equipment were pressed into service to scan every coach but found nothing suspicious."The search was exhaustive. However, after hours of screening, no suspicious or bomb-like objects were found. It was a clear case of a hoax," said SRP (Howrah) Indrajit Basu, who served in the Bengal STF. Regarding the incident, Shibram Majhi, chief public relations officer of Eastern Railway, stated that lodging false complaints, especially those involving security threats, is a grave offence that causes unnecessary panic, disrupts vital train operations and misuses critical security resources. He emphasised that Indian Railways maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward such irresponsible acts, which can attract up to seven years of imprisonment, and urged passengers to use the Rail Madad platform responsibly to ensure the safety and efficiency of the rail network.
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