The stranded passengers waited patiently to resume their journey, while the scanty GRP staff at Solapur searched their luggage before giving a thorough anti-sabotage check in all the compartments.

What delayed the checks was a total absence of sophisticated equipment like metal detectors and non-availability of sniffers specialised in detecting explosives.

Moreover, the inadequate number of railway policemen, knew little about the explosive devises, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Railway) C D Soparkar told The Indian Express in Pune.

The drama began around 5.10 pm on Wednesday, when the control room of Solapur Police Commissionerate received an anonymous telephone call stating that a bomb had been planted on the train. The Solapur police, in turn, alerted the CentralRailways and GRP officials at Solapur railway station.

The train, already running about 45 minutes behind schedule, rolled in at the station around 5.15 pm on platform number 3.

The passengers aboard the train were asked to alight along with their baggage and wait for inspection. Later, the police asked each passenger to open his luggage and checked it.

When the search proved futile, all the compartments were thoroughly checked. By the time the train could proceed, it was around 5.15 am on Thursday.

Long-distance passengers have gone through a similar experience on at least three occasions in the last two years. Verifying tip-offs about bombs aboard trains becomes difficult for the GRP, since they are ill-equipped.

The Pune division of GRP covers tracks across the distance of 500 km. It looks after the Thane-Kalyan, Kalyan-Nashik, Kalyan-Pune-Daund-Solapur, Daund-Baramati, Daund-Ahmednagar-Belapur, Pune-Miraj-Kolhapur and Miraj-Kurduwadi-Latur sections of Central and South Central Railways. However,it does not have sniffers specialised in detecting explosives, or metal detectors.

A proposal to set up Bomb Detection Squads (BDS) at GRP units, mooted a year ago by the then Superintendent of Police (Railway) Ankush Dhanvijay, is still pending.