Gurdaspur terror attack: How the terrorists' bomb threat was foiled

"What happened was the will of god, I was just the medium." With these humble words, 57-year-old Satpal walked away. No one knows who Satpal is, even in the vicinity of Dinanagar where generations of his family have lived and died, where on Monday the attention of the entire country was focused on account of what the investigators believe to be a Pakistan sponsored terrorist strike.

At 5.30 am on Monday morning, before the nation even woke up to the terror strike, Satpal, a farmer, his friend railway gateman Darshan Kumar with help from a few others, had already defeated the three terrorists without firing a single shot.

"I walk along the tracks every morning at this time to reach a Gujjar family where they milk the cows. We have been procuring milk from them for decades. Before I start, I exchange pleasantries with Darshan and move. That is when, after walking for a kilometre along the bridge, I spotted few cables which felt unusual. However, I kept walking. With me was a boy from my village and based on our discussion, we went back to the bridge and spotted some compartments that were attached very neatly to the tracks," recounted Satpal. The 'compartments' he referred to were later detected as pressure mines which were removed by the Army's bomb disposal team. These mines were poised to explode on application of pressure that a train would have brought upon. The terrorists also chose a bridge over a rivulet to deploy these bombs.

"Not only would have the train run off the tracks but also plunged into the rivulet, crashing down by more than 20 feet," said Darshan Kumar, a railway employee for over three decades. "It scares to even tell you an estimate of how many would have died," he added.

On Monday morning, on its way to cross Darshan Kumar's gate at 5.54 am was '54612 Passenger', the most packed of trains which ply between Pathankot and Amritsar, carrying early morning office goers. It would have never reached there but for what Satpal and Darshan Kumar did.

"Though I don't know what a bomb looks like, I felt it could be one so I asked the boy to sprint towards Darshan's gate and tell him to stop any train coming there," said Satpal. The boy did as was told. Darshan began walking when he saw his colleague, a much fitter man, key man Ashwini Kumar. "I told Ashwini to run to the bridge," said Darshan. While Ashwini ran, Darshan alerted his colleagues and the railway authorities who closed all traffic.

That the '54612 Passenger' train was halted only metres before the bridge by Ashwini Kumar, Satpal and others, who had gathered at the spot by then, is a testimony to the close shave the passengers had and how the terrorists nearly succeeded but for the intervention by these men. While the security forces contributed in foiling the terrorists' plan by reacting to a situation, Satpal and his old friend Darshan Kumar did so by being proactive, curious and alert.

Divisional Transport Manager Ashok Salaria said the railways had plans for felicitate these men for their actions. "We are going to call them to Ferozepur where our Divisional Railway Manager is based," he said. "It felt nice. The Inspector General of Police patted my back and thanked me. I told him, I was incidentally there, the almighty prevented the attack," said Satpal.