Bomb threat delays Jammu-Delhi Rajdhani by over four hours

Chandigarh: Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express from Jammu that was stopped and thoroughly searched for over four hours by the Army and police at Pathankot in Punjab following an alert about the presence of an explosive inside it, was allowed to proceed further today.

The alert was passed on to Punjab police by their J&K counterpart, following which the search operation was launched. The train, which had arrived at Pathankot at about 9:18 pm last night finally left the station at 1.57 am this morning after the search was over, police said. The train remained at Pathankot Cantt railway station for 4.34 hours.

They said that the train would be reaching New Delhi at about 9 am today against its scheduled arrival time of 5 am. Earlier, nearly 150 security personnel including three DSP-rank Punjab Police officers, one SP-rank officer, besides personnel drawn from the Government Railway Police (GRP) thoroughly searched the Jammu-Delhi train at Pathankot Cantt station, which is situated about 250 kilometres from here.

Later on, the Army's help was also sought which chipped in to search the train. Army personnel also searched the train for presence of any explosive, Pathankot SSP Rakesh Kaushal said. "A specific input passed on by the DGP of J&K Police to us after which we acted swiftly and started searching the train thoroughly. We did not want to take any chances. We also sought the Army help to search the train," he said.

Notably, security forces are on maximum alert in the wake of December 5 terror attacks carried out by the militants in J&K. Pathankot town in Punjab is located along the Punjab-J&K border.

The passengers were asked to disembark the train, which had left Jammu at around 7:45 pm to reach Pathankot after 9:18 pm, travelling a distance of about 100 kilometres. Dog squad, bomb disposal squad and other equipment was pressed into service to check the train, which was then allowed to proceed further after four-and-a-half hours search.