Mumbai: Hotel gets call from hoax caller, demands Rs 5 crore to defuse bombs

Mumbai, Aug 24: The Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad and a sniffer dog of the police carried out a four hour check operation in 380 rooms and the remaining area of a five star hotel in Andheri. (East) after it received two bomb threat calls on its landline telephone number on Monday evening. It however turned out to be a hoax.

The hotel received two calls from a mobile number at 5.30 pm and 6.02 pm warning about four bombs being planted on the hotel premises. The caller demanded Rs 5 crore to reveal the method to defuse the bombs.

The cyber police are now tracking the caller after a third call was made to explain where and how the money should be delivered to him.

A case has been filed against an unknown person under Section 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), Section 385 (putting a person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) and Section 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code.

This is the fourth such received by various establishments in the past two weeks. The BDDS team carried out checks in an MIDC hotel too after it received the mail on Tuesday morning. The mail was sent by a security agency asking the hotel to take necessary security steps," DCP Maheshwar Reddy said after an industrial security company sent out a mail to all important establishments in Andheri (east) to be careful and step up security measures.