noida

Updated: Jan 19, 2018 22:29 IST

Tragedy was averted when three teenagers, who spotted a 30-year-old man removing fish plates from the Ghaziabad-Meerut railway track near Murad Nagar railway station, handed him over to the police around 8.30am on Friday.

The Mumbai-Dehradun Express was scheduled to cross this section at 8.55am.

The train was halted at the station for 40 minutes and allowed to move after the track was repaired.

Officials of the Government Railway Police (GRP) said that the boys—Shiva, Tushar and Sachin Kumar—saw the suspect, Furkan, removing fish plates.

Furkan is being questioned about his intention behind damaging the track. “We have called the local intelligence units. We have also informed the UP anti-terrorism squad. So far, we have not been able to ascertain any ulterior motive on Furkan’s part,” SC Dubey, superintendent of police, GRP Moradabad, said, adding that the man has been booked for damaging property.

“If anything serious is revealed, we will consider booking Furkan under more stringent sections. The man said he removed the fish plates to buy wheat flour,” Dubey said.

The three teenagers spotted Furkan at the railway tracks, nearly 800 metres ahead of the Murad Nagar railway station. They said he was sitting on the tracks and asked them for their mobile phone to make a call. But, the boys refused to give him their phones. When they saw the fish plates he had removed from the tracks, they beat him up and brought him to the railway station where he was handed over to the GRP and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) officials.

The suspect hails from Bulandshahr district and is currently residing at the Idgah locality in Murad Nagar.