A large contingent of security personnel including railway police, the bomb disposal squad of the Chennai police and a couple of sniffer dogs were pressed into service when the train reached Chennai nearly 100 minutes late, official sources told Deccan Herald.
SE from Patna is scheduled to reach Chennai at 1:05 pm everyday and leave for Bangalore at 1:30 pm. “Around 2:40 pm we received information about the bomb threat from the Bangalore railway police. The threat call was made to the DGP office there,” the sources said.
The search operation began even when the SE reached Chennai Central station. After a thorough search of all the compartments, the train was cleared for departure at 4:10 pm," the sources said, adding that the bomb threat turned out to be an elaborate hoax.
The Bangalore-Patna return train of SE via Chennai which reaches the station around 3 pm was also subjected to a thorough search. The train was cleared for departure at 3:20pm.
Hundreds of passengers in both these trains were put to great inconvenience, even as the search operations delayed the departure of certain other trains from Chennai Central station.
