Railway police arrest 3 for making hoax bomb threat calls

Mumbai, Aug 19: The Mumbai Government Railway Police (GRP) have arrested three persons for allegedly making hoax calls to police control rooms in various trains in the city.

GRP officials said that they arrested Mateen Ahmed (20), a tailor residing at suburban Sion on Saturday. Ahmed allegedly called the police control on Saturday evening at 5 pm and said that a bomb was to explode at suburban Jogeshwari railway station. Ahmed had called the control room at least more than ten times this month, the police said.

In yet another case, the police said that they received a call at the control room around 12:50 pm on Independence Day. The caller said that he had gotten into a brawl with a person in the central local railway line and the latter was carrying a bomb which would explode between Wadala and Reay Road railway stations. The police said that they found that the card belonged to Lilambar Panigrahi (42) and when he was contacted he admitted having made a hoax call and was later arrested.

In a third such incident, police arrested Praveen Bhatia on Aug 4, for allegedly making hoax calls from his two cell phone numbers and said that 13 bombs were to explode between Kurla and CST on that day. Bhatia, during the call, identified himself as Mohan Pawar and said that he placed bombs in the train along with his son-in-law Pravin Thamke.

The police said that when they inquired with the owners of the SIM they learnt that both cell phones had recently been stolen.

Further Pawar, Bhatia's former employee said he suspected Bhatia. Police said that Bhatia had been making threatening calls to Pawar after the later fired him two months ago.

PTI