Man Smoking In Vande Bharat Express Toilet Triggers Fire Alarm, Detained

A passenger smoking inside a toilet on the Tirupati-Secunderabad Vande Bharat Express triggered a false alarm and an automatic fire extinguisher, and stopped the train for a while on Wednesday evening, a railway official said. He was travelling without a ticket and hiding in the toilet to escape officials.

The incident happened in coach C-13 on Train No. 20702 after it passed Gudur in Andhra Pradesh, the official said.

"An unauthorised passenger boarded the train from Tirupati and locked himself in the toilet of the C-13 coach. He smoked inside the toilet which resulted in the automatic activation of an aerosol fire extinguisher inside the toilet," an official from South Central Railway (SCR) Zone's Vijayawada Division said in a press release.

Following the false alarm, the aerosol fire extinguisher started emitting powder-like smoke to douse the flame and the passengers in the coach panicked.

Later, they relayed the information to the train's guard through an emergency phone inside the coach and the train stopped in the state's Manubolu around 5 pm.

Mistaking the false alarm to be a fire accident, the Railway Police rushed to the coach with a fire extinguisher and broke the toilet's window to save the man who was smoking inside.

The Railway Police detained him at Nellore for appropriate action, the official, said, adding that the train resumed its journey later.