Man Beaten for ‘BOM’ Luggage Tag, Crowd Thought He’s a Terrorist

Ganesh Shinde, the man who was beaten up. The ‘BOM’ tag shown here is for representational purposes only and is not the tag that was on Shinde’s luggage.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A group of passengers aboard the Khandesh Express train beat up a fellow passenger suspecting him to be a terrorist. The reason for their suspicion? A conversation about bombs and the fact that the 32-year-old man was carrying luggage with an airline tag that read ‘BOM’. Though ‘BOM’ stands for Bombay, other passengers mistook it to mean “bomb”, reported The Indian Express.

The incident occurred around 11:35 pm. Ganesh Shinde, the man who was beaten up, was travelling in a general compartment on his way back to Mumbai after attending a friend’s wedding.

The Initial Suspicion

The Railway Protection Police (RPF) told the daily that Shinde had asked a fellow passenger, 24-year-old Ganesh Shankar, for a charger. After they started chatting, Shinde apparently wanted to talk to Shankar about the “recipe to make a bomb”.

“Shankar grew skeptical but laughed it off. But when Shinde handed over his cellphone to Shankar and asked him to type out his mobile number Shankar raised an alarm and called the ticket examiner and other passengers,” an RPF officer told The Indian Express.

The Map Scribbled on Shinde’s Luggage

After Shankar raised an alarm and called other passengers, several of them reportedly began checking Shinde’s luggage.

That is when they found the airline tag of ‘BOM’, which they mistook for “bomb”. They also saw that he had a map scribbled on his luggage. Then the passengers began beating up Shinde, as the train was pulling in at Bardoli station in Gujarat.

“When inquired about the map scribbled on his luggage, Shinde said that he had drawn it to explain the route of the char dham yatra to a friend,” the RPF officer said.

The Bomb Check

The other passengers handed Shinde over to the Railway Police, reported The Indian Express, and the train was even inspected to see if there was any bomb on it.

The train, which was scheduled to depart from Bardoli at 11:35 pm, eventually left around 12:10 am.

While Shinde was detained at the police station, he explained that the tag on his luggage was from the airport where he worked as a utility van driver. The Railway Police verified the same the following afternoon after which Shinde was finally let off.