Chennai: The Met office is very much in the news these days. Having come into the limelight ever since it predicted heavy spells of rains for the last fortnight, the office seems to have grabbed attention of the wrong kind too. A prankster took it upon himself to fool the weather predictors with a trick of his own, forcing the bomb disposal squad to pay a visit Thursday to the premises in Nungambakkam searching for a bomb.
A bomb-like object was the subject of intrigue and it kept the police teams and BDDS members busy from 10 to 11 am after a member of the cleaning staff found the object on the terrace of the trainees’ hostel located in the Met office premises.
When contacted, the police explained that it was only an article that looked like a bomb and not a real one. “It was a ball like object filled with cracker powder and a cloth wick jutting through an opening. It was made out of an ice cream container shaped like a ball,” they said. Insiders, however, averred that the article could have exploded if it was ignited.
“Only it was not ignited. The content was made up of tightly packed commercial explosive material. Whoever made it, we can’t find fault with the nefarious design,” a police source said.
The panic over a ‘bomb’ had begun at around 9 am when Thulasi Das, who was cleaning the terrace, spotted the object. The Nungambakkam police were informed and a team led by the assistant commissioner of police and BDDS squad was dispatched to the location.
After the BDDS checked the object and found it was not ignited, the article was safely removed from the place. The police team later checked the entire area to make sure that the Met office premises were free from any kind of explosives.
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