Times Square bomb scare panics New Yorkers

NEW YORK - Panic prevailed at New York’s Times Square as security officials had the area vacated after an abandoned car containing a suspicious object caught fire.

Pedestrians spotted smoke coming out of a Nissan Pathfinder parked outside a theatre at 6:30 p.m. in evening, when the place was bustling with people .

NYPD’s bomb squad arrived immediately and cordoned-off the site.

A robot was used to handle the suspicious package that was in the back of the vehicle, The New York Post quoted officials, as saying.

Cops found gasoline, gunpowder and other materials, details of which were not disclosed by the officials, in the ‘box within a box’ found inside the vehicle, whose registration number was also found to be fake.

Some officials said they also heard few small blasts, however, the authorities are tight-lipped about the investigations.

“It just looked like more than a typical car fire,” sources said.

Meanwhile, chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Times Square where hundreds of people had converged on a weekend.

“The police aren’t sharing information about what was going on or how long it would take. It’s really frustrating not to know what’s going on,” said Rich Gaudino, who had come along with his family to watch ‘The Lion King’ at the Minskoff Theatre. (ANI)