Bomb in bus scares people

BANGALORE: Tension prevailed at Doddakannalli bus stop near Sarjapur on the outskirts of the city on Saturday morning, after an object which looked like a bomb was found in a BMTC bus. However, the police, after checking the object, clarified that it was not a bomb but  a prank by some miscreants.A BMTC bus (Route No 342F), plying between Majestic and Doddakannalli, came to the bus stop at around 9.50 am. The driver and the conductor got down and went to have breakfast after all the passengers had alighted the bus. When they returned about 20 minutes later, the driver found an object in the bus which looked very similar to a bomb. Fearing that it was a bomb, he informed the police, who rushed to the spot and examined it. As the news of a ‘bomb’ found in the bus spread among the public, the people waiting for buses in the bus stop, ran helter-skelter. Later, the bomb defusal squad and sniffer squads confirmed it was not a bomb. “The object appeared like a bomb, but it was not. The object was wrapped in a plastic cover. Wires and insulated tape put inside a beer bottle gave it a bomb-like look, which  scared the people,” the police said.South East Division’s Deputy Commissioner of Police Harsha said,  “It is suspected that some miscreants have kept the object inside the bus when nobody was inside. The main motive was to create panic among people.”