Bomb hoax in court premises

Vadodara, Mar 13 (UNI) A bomb scare for the second consecutive day created panic in a city court here today and it later turned out to be a hoax.

An anonymous caller said a time bomb had been planted in the premises of the district, civil and criminal court located within the posh 'Nyay Mandir' and warned it will go off at about 1230 hrs.

The call was received by Raopura police station at 1150 hrs.

The police immediately swung into action and got the entire three-storyed court building evacuated with the permission from the Chief Judicial Magistrate N C Shukla.

Bomb detection and disposal squad alongwith their snifer dogs searched the building for about two hours.

Work in the 27 courts, which was affected because of the bomb hoax, resumed at 1410 hrs after the investigating team declared the building safe.

Police inspector B M Rajvanshi from Raopura said an investigation was on to nab the annonymous caller.

Baroda Bar Association strongly condemned the incident, saying this was only aimed at creating panic in such crowded places.

Some senior lawyers believe it was the handiwork of some miscreants, who wanted to stall today's hearing of a September, 2003, case in which four notorious criminals were held with some live bombs which they were supposed to use during the Ganesh immersion ceremony that year.

Yesterday, a similar panic was created at the Vadodara railway station after a rumour spread that a bomb had been planted in the station premises. GRP, SRP and RPF personnel conducted a thorough search of two trains stranded at the platforms and scanned the entire station area in the afternoon, but it too had turned out to be a hoax.

UNI SS KD AK ND1752