Aligarh, January 6: In order to get some warmth in the chilling winters, Faridabad residents Chandan Kumar and Devendra Singh reportedly took dung cakes onboard an express train headed for Delhi and started a fire.  With their bold incendiary act on Thursday, January 4, Chandan and Devendra wrote one of the most unusual and possibly explosive incidents in Indian Railways' recent history, endangering the lives of thousands of people travelling on the Sampark Kranti Superfast Express from Assam.

After being arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh, the two accused, who are in their early 20s, begged for helplessness, claiming that they had to take the action since it was extremely chilly inside the public unreserved carriage. The area's lowest temperatures have often been in the range of 10 degrees Celsius. Men Perform Stunts on Goods Train In Noida Video: Two Half-Naked Youths Caught on Camera Performing Dangerous Stunt on Moving Freight Train, Arrested.

“All we wanted to do was protect ourselves from the cold. Therefore, we built the bonfire”, the two reportedly pleaded to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) officers. According to RPF's Aligarh post commander Rajeev Sharma, the two have been booked under many provisions of the IPC and the Railway Act and have been sent to jail.

Some RPF personnel on duty inside the moving train spotted smoke rising from the general coach and found a group huddled around a bonfire. Interrogation of the passengers led the cops to Chandan and Devendra. As the bonfire sent the police team into a tizzy, they alerted the nearest RPF base in Aligarh, where the train was forced to make an unscheduled stop to deboard the suspects and carry out preventive checks. Kerala Train Fire Incident: Man Accused of Setting Passenger Ablaze Onboard Train in Kozhikode Arrested by Police From Maharashtra.

What stunned the cops and others was the presence of dung cakes. Asked how such inflammable materials could get into a train, officials told that no such things are sold on platforms or anywhere near stations. They (Chandan and Devendra) would have brought these dung cakes with them. Meanwhile, further investigation in the matter is underway.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 06, 2024 02:59 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).