The deserted platform number 10 of Patna Junction near the Karbighaiya end on Monday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

People living near the Karbighaiya end are yet to come to terms with normal life a day after blasts rocked Patna Junction.

For, they have never seen or heard anything of this sort before in Patna.

There are around 15 residential and five commercial buildings just 20m from the public toilet where the bombs exploded on Sunday.

The residents have not been able to stop thinking about the gory scene they had witnessed and the panic that followed. To make matters worse, the residents experienced the explosion not twice but four times.

After three bombs went off between 9.30am and 12.40pm, the residents heard the sound of explosions once again in the night.

“It was around 11pm when several security personnel started knocking the doors of the buildings. We had our dinner and were watching news on television. I looked through the window and saw people (bomb squad and National Security Guard personnel) with some device. They asked us to evacuate the houses as they were going to defuse two more bombs,” said Satish Kumar, a resident of Karbigahiya.

He added: “My family was scared. The personnel said we should vacate the place as soon as possible and should go to some open space. Everyone in our area vacated his or her house. I was praying that nothing gruesome happens now because we have already witnessed the morning mayhem.” After vacating the houses, the security personnel took two hours to defuse two bombs.

Another resident Shahid said: “It was 1.02am when the two bombs were defused one after the other. The sound was deafening. It’s still echoing in my ears.”

Railway superintendent of police Upendra Kumar Sinha said five bombs were planted in the public toilet (Sulabh Sauchalaya). “Two bombs exploded in the morning in which one person was injured. One more exploded at 12.40pm when a bomb squad official was defusing the device, injuring his left hand. Two bombs were defused on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.”

When personnel of the National Security Guard (NSG) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) visited Karbigahiya on Monday to inspect the blast sites, the residents thought more blasts are to follow.

Mithilesh Kumar, who has a shop near the parking lot of the Karbighaiya end, said: “I was about to down the shutters of my shop when the NIA and NSG personnel did a recce of the place. I thought more blasts would follow. My shop is around 150m from the spot but the sound of the blasts was so deafening that I could hear it.”

The Karbighaiya end of Patna Junction is usually chirpy. But it wore a deserted look on Monday. People avoided the route and chose to enter the station premises from the Mahavir Mandir side.

Even platform number 10, which falls on the Karbigahiya end, was desolate. The number of passengers and commuters were less compared to normal days. Observers pointed out that the footfall was not even half.

“The impact was apprehended. People normally avoid visiting the places where such a pandemonium had occurred the previous day. My business has been severely hit. Everyday, I make around Rs 1,500 but today (Monday) I had been able to make only Rs 500,” said Kumar Abhishek, who has a snack stall on platform number 10.