New Delhi:

Panic ensued as a snake was found slithering among the overhead luggage aboard the Jan Shatabdi Express between Bhopal and Jabalpur.

The snake was found in the Jan Shatabdi Express two days back and the matter is being probed, West Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Harshit Shrivastava told PTI.

The area where the train was cleaned has been sanitised and workers there have been put on alert.

Further, a probe by the Railway Protection Force in underway from various angles. The possible involvement of an outsider in releasing the snake inside the train’s coach is also being investigated.

Last month, a live snake was discovered in an AC coach of the Vasco-da-Gama Weekly Express travelling from Jharkhand to Goa on October 21. Several passengers spotted the snake slithering near the curtains of a lower berth in an AC 2-tier coach and took videos of it. The snake was caught and removed from the train with the help of IRCTC staff, who responded promptly to the situation.

In a similar incident in September, a long snake was found coiled around the iron bar that held the upper side berth of the Garib Rath Express going from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur to Mumbai.

An incident in April took a dangerous turn when a passenger was allegedly bitten by a snake on the Madurai-Guruvayur Passenger Express. The passenger got down at Ettumanoor station and shifted to the Medical College Hospital.

New Delhi/Rampur:

The driver of the Naini Jan Shatabdi Express averted a possible accident when he slammed the emergency brakes on finding an iron pole across the tracks in near Uttarakhand’s Rudrapur, officials said on Thursday, alleging that it could be sabotage.

The incident occurred on Wednesday near Rudrapur City Railway Station, approximately 43 kilometres from Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, Railway officials said.

“On September 18 at 10.18 pm, the loco pilot of train number 12091 reported to Station Master/Rudrapur City that he found one 6-metre-long iron pole on track between Bilaspur Road and Rudrapur City,” a spokesperson from the Railway Ministry said suggesting an act of sabotage.

“The driver stopped the train to clear the track. He started the train safely afterwards,” the spokesperson said.

On the complaint of Rudrapur City Section Railway Engineer Rajendra Kumar, an FIR was lodged at GRP Police Station Rampur under sections of the Railways Act 1989 against unnamed people.

“On seeing the electric pole, the loco pilot applied emergency brakes and stopped the train and after removing the pole the train resumed its journey,” the FIR read.

Personnel from Government Railway Police(GRP), Railway Protection Force (RPF) and police outpost arrived at the scene and initiated an investigation.

Of late, some railway divisions have reported cases in which obstructions in the form of gas cylinders, boulders or broken rails have been placed on the railway tracks with an intent to cause damage to train operations.

In Farrukhabad on August 24, a passenger train was stopped on the Kasganj-Farrukhabad railway track near the Bhatasa Railway Station after its engine hit a log placed on the tracks.

Earlier, in Kanpur an FIR was lodged for suspected sabotage in the derailment of 20 coaches of a passenger train.

The divisions have lodged FIRs in these cases and investigations are going on to trace the anti-social elements and prosecute them.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)