An improvised explosive device (IED) was recovered from a State Transport bus in Maharashtra’s Raigad district late on Wednesday night.
The ST bus was on its way from Karjat to Apta village near Panvel town when the driver found a suspected material kept in a bag on board the bus, at around 11 pm.
The circumspect ST bus driver quickly acted and asked the passengers to disembark the bus. He also immediately alerted the police about the finding.
A team of Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad from the nearby Alibaug rushed to the spot short afterwards. The team found that the material looking a device kept in a bag was indeed an IED. “The team took nearly five hours to defuse the IED by removing the wires and detonator in it. The police sanitised the ST bus in the early hours of today,” a senior police officer said.
Raigad’s district superintendent of police Anil Paraskar said that device had been sent for forensic examination. "We have a reason to believe the device might have been kept to create a panic and terror among people,” Paraskar said.
After the incident, the coastal Raigad district was placed under a high alert. The State-run Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) ordered beefing up of security across its depots, bus stands and buses in the state.
Maharashtra’s Transport minister Diwakar Raote ordered a check of all the buses in its fleet. "This is serious and the matter is being investigated," he said.
Meanwhile, initial investigations have revealed the IED device was of relatively of a low intensity explosive.