By IANS
Kolkata : A major tragedy was averted Friday with the timely recovery of a bomb from the Kolkata-bound Teesta Torsa Express in north Bengal's Jalpaiguri district.
Railway sources said the bomb was detected from the train's S1 coach at Dhupguri in the afternoon after railway officials received an anonymous phone call saying that a bomb had been planted in the coach.
The information turned out to be accurate and the explosive device was recovered with the help of sniffer dogs. Sources said the bomb was being defused.
Teesta Torsa Express runs between Kolkata's Sealdah station and north Bengal's Alipurduar. Dhupguri is about 600 km from Kolkata.
In November 2006, at least eight people, including a woman and a child, were killed and scores injured when a blast ripped through a general compartment of the Haldibari-New Jalpaiguri passenger train at Belakoba in the same region under Jalpaiguri district.
North Bengal, which borders Assam, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, has militant groups like Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) operating in the area along with Assam's ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) besides Pakistan's ISI.
On May 21, another tragedy was averted with the detection of four explosives on a stationary local train in Howrah station of Kolkata.