Vande Bharat 'ticketless' passenger lights cigarette in toilet, triggers panic as fire alarm goes off | Video

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Vande Bharat's coach C – 13 on Train No. 20702 after passing Gudur, news agency PTI reported citing railway officials. "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. After the false fire alarm rang, the aerosol fire extinguisher started emitting powder-like smoke to douse the flame and in that process, the passengers in that Vande Bharat coach panicked. 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 PTI.

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 Vande Bharat trains seem to have been the victim several unruly activities from within and without by passengers and others.

Adding to the string of incidents where stones were pelted a few days ago, unidentified men pelted stones at the Vande Bharat Express train running from Gorakhpur-Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki region. In the past couple of weeks, second Vande Bharat trains has been announced in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Tamil Nadu is likely to get another Vande Bharat Express soon.