Mumbai falls prey to rumours

By Alex D'souza

Along with the terror attacks, city residents are also battling paranoia, panic and rumours. Sounds - ostensibly of gunfire - caused panic at CST station and train services were terminated for half-an-hour on Friday afternoon. While some sources said a policeman mistakenly fired his weapon at Azad Maidan, others said that an indicator had crashed at the station.

BMC sources said the railway control room informed the civic office that three terrorists were in the station and firing. The BMC was told that CST's exits had been shut. When journalists called up the BMC control room, the latter only confirmed the 'developments', until they were found to be untrue.

However, by then several major TV channels reported the "news" and then retracted it after finding out it was untrue. But by the time news anchors apologised for stoking panic, many nervous Mumbaikars were already heading home.

Mumbai resident Miku Mathew was on a Central Railway train bound for CST when she got a panicked call from her sister in Pune at about 1.15pm. "My sister was frantic. She said several TV channels were reporting renewed firing at CST and urged me to return home right away," said Mathew. As if on cue, her train chose to stop that moment between the Chinchpokhli and Byculla stations. Mathew said, "The train remained stuck for a good 15 minutes. Many women in the coach, who had received similar phone calls, jumped off. Soon, hundreds of men and women, including senior citizens, were trudging along the tracks to Chinchpokhli. Some scaled the railway boundary walls to take the road. I called my colleagues at CST, who assured me it was all just a rumour. A friend also SMSed to say Doordarshan had clarified there was no firing. My train moved on, and I found things were normal at CST."

Services resumed at 1.40pm and the main concourse of the station was evacuated. Divisional railway manager, Central Railway, J N Lal, who rushed to the site, said the control room received a call which said that firing was heard from the station.

"I was in the control room when the call came in. The caller sounded panicky and said he heard two shots. CST is an important station and handles 36 lakh passengers everyday," he said.

At Charni Road station on the Western line, passengers started returning home after hearing that trains were not running beyond Mumbai Central. Railway announcements rubbished the rumour, but many offices closed for the day. At about 4.30pm on Friday, rumours flew of gunfire at Marine Lines station, also on the Western line. These, too, were unfounded.

Rumours also led to the police blockading in the afternoon the road between Metro junction and Crawford market, on which the police commissionerate is located.

Sukrat, who was taking flying lessons in Mumbai, has fled to his hometown Shirdi after news of the attacks. "I heard a couple of terrorists are roaming free. I opted to be safe," said Sukrat. Echoing his views, Vishal Nirbhavane told TOI over the phone from Nashik, "My whole day was spent listening to rumours of fresh attacks. I would not have felt safe unless I was home."