After police investigations show Bakery blast accused Baig got off at city bus depot with bomb in bag, MiD DAY conducts a check and finds police presence thin at bus stations, awareness about what to do with unclaimed baggage low
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Police investigations indicate German Bakery blast accused Mirza Himayat Baig travelled to the city by bus, alighting at the Shivaji Nagar depot with a bomb in his bag.
In light of this finding, MiD DAY decided to take a look at the security arrangements at major bus depots in the city.

The verdict is not a happy one. Security arrangements were virtually non-existent at depots; so deplorable was the state of affairs that commuters would not be able to do much else than pray in case of an untoward incident.
Here is the depot-by-depot account of what we found.

Pune station bus stand
Time: 3.30 pm
Reporters: Alifiya Khan and Preeti Agarwal
What we saw: One of our reporters entered the bus station carrying a big brown leather bag and sat in the passengers' waiting area.u00a0

The abandoned bag at Pune Station bus stand.

After five minutes, the reporter casually walked away, leaving the bag behind. The other reporter waited 15 minutes to see what would happen.
The bag lay there without anyone noticing it. We then repeated the same exercise outside the guard's cabin in the waiting area. After about 15 minutes, a woman constable noticed the bag and came out of her cubicle.
But, instead of making enquiries about the bag or informing her seniors, she tried to open it. When she was unable to do so, she took her baton and started prodding the bag with it.
This, despite the fact that a notice pasted on a wall a few metres away saying no unattended bags should be opened or moved.