TIMES OF INDIA (New Delhi) 10 July 11 Tortoises in bag cause bomb scareChennai: An abandoned bag triggered a bomb scare at the busy Chennai Central railway station on Saturday morning. Finally' when the bomb disposal team opened the bag' out crawled four tortoises .
The security agencies received an alert at 9.15am that an unclaimed bag was found on board the Grand Trunk Express that had reached platform no. 3. "After all the passengers left the platform' security personnel found the bag inside a general compartment'" said a railway police official.
"We immediately informed the control room and a bomb disposal team rushed to the compartment. The railway police evacuated people from the area."
The bomb disposal squad moved the bag to an open space outside the station and opened it only to find four tortoises . "We have handed over the tortoises to the forest department'" said a senior railways official. Nobody has claimed ownership of the bag.
Velachery forest range officer David Raj said they were ordinary river tortoises. "These are not star tortoises which are smuggled. It has no medicinal value or commercial value. We will release them into an open water body in a couple of days'" he said.
Tortoises in bag cause bomb scare