The labourer from Rajasthan has been detained by police

The city police tracked down the man whose demeanour at the Majestic metro station sparked off a terror scare in the city on May 6 after CCTV camera footage showed him refusing a security check when the metal detector beeped as he passed through the gate. The man, identified as Sajid Khan, is a labourer from a village in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan who had come with his family to collect zakat, charity money given at mosques during Ramzan, according to the police. It was his first time at a metro station.

The police tracked him down after an alert from an autorickshaw driver who was near the metro station at the time of the incident and had ferried Sajid to a lodge in Cottonpet.

Sajid was unaware of the scare the incident had caused and that several news channels and WhatsApp groups had branded him as a terrorist. “We detained him and took him to the police station for questioning. He told us he had come to the city a few days ago with his family to collect alms.”

First visit

According to the police, this was Sajid’s first visit to a metro station. “He had never travelled in a metro, and decided to take a ride. When he went for the security check, the door-frame metal detector began to beep as he was wearing a metal charm. He also had a handful of coins collected as alms from a nearby mosque,” said a police officer.

The security guard stopped him and questioned him in Kannada about the contents in his pocket. Sajid started getting worried as he did not know Kannada and saw the guard calling out to a colleague for assistance. “He said he was scared and left the station in a hurry. Once outside, he asked an autorickshaw driver to take him to the lodge where he was put up,” the officer added.

“We found nothing incriminating on Sajid. However, we have detained him to cross-check with our counterparts in Jhunjhunu about his claims and to ascertain his background,” Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar said.