Ticketless Man Smokes Inside Toilet Of Vande Bharat Express, Triggers Fire Scare

A ticketless man created panic inside the Tirupati–Secunderabad Vande Bharat Express when aerosol fire extinguisher started emitting powder-like smoke to douse the false fire in the train. The incident took place when an unauthorised passenger boarded the train from Tirupati and locked himself in the toilet of C-13 coach. He then smoked inside the toilet of the semi-high speed train, triggering a false fire alarm. The incident happened on Train No. 20702 after passing Gudur, said the official, and in that process, the passengers in that coach panicked.

"An unauthorised passenger boarded the train from Tirupati and locked himself in the toilet of C-13 coach... The passenger smoked inside the toilet which resulted in automatic activation of aerosol fire extinguisher present inside the toilet," an official from South Central Railway (SCR) Zone's Vijayawada Division said in a press release. Following the false alarm, the aerosol fire extinguisher started emitting powder-like smoke to douse the flame 

Later, they relayed the information to the train's guard through an emergency phone connection inside the coach, leading to the train getting halted at Manubolu around 5 pm, reported AP. Mistaking the false alarm to be a fire accident, the Railway police rushed to the coach with a fire extinguisher and broke the toilet's window to save the passenger who was smoking inside it.

Railway police detained him at Nellore for appropriate action as per the Railway Act, the official added while the train resumed its journey later. The train had to be stopped for nearly half an hour due to the incident. 

Earlier, in June, a ticketless man boarded a Vande Bharat Express train from the Kasaragod station and locked himself inside the washroom for hours. The Railway officials, stated that the man was brought out only after the train reached Shornur railway station after breaking open the washroom door. The Vande Bharat Express train runs from Kasaragod-Trivandrum and is the first Vande Bharat Express in the Southern state.

In another such incident, a person who boarded the Vande Bharat Express to take a leak at a station locked himself inside the train and was fined Rs 5000 for boarding the train in an unauthorized manner.