3 arrested for sending hoax bomb threat email to RBI

Mumbai police arrest three people from Gujarat for sending a hoax bomb threat email to the Reserve Bank of India demanding the resignation of top officials.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police crime branch on Wednesday arrested three persons from Vadodara, Gujarat accused of sending a hoax bomb threat email to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The mail, sent on Tuesday, claimed bombs were planted at eleven places in Mumbai. It provided three locations and all 11 bombs would explode serially if RBI governor Shaktikanta Das and union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not resign from their posts by 1.30pm.

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The alleged mastermind behind the emails, Mohammad Arshil Mohammad Iqbal Topala, 27, held a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree and was involved in share trading. Police officials said Topala sent the emails for fun and to harass government officials; there was no other motive. He was arrested along with two accomplices – his brother-in-law Wasimraja Abdulrazzak Memon, 35, who ran a paan shop, and Memon’s friend Adilbhai Rafikbhai Malik, 23, who owned a small shop.

Police officials said Malik procured a sim card using forged documents and gave it to Memon, who then handed it over to Topala. The share trader created a gmail account – khilafat.india@gmail.com – from his mobile phone using the sim card procured by Malik.

“The scam involves Shantikanta Das, Nirmala Sitharaman, some of the top banking officials and some renowned ministers of India. We have sufficient, solid proofs for the same. We demand that both the RBI governor and the finance minister immediately resign from their posts and issue a press statement with full disclosure of the scam. We also demand the government to give them both and all those involved the punishments that they deserve,” the mail stated, claiming serial blasts would go off if resignations were not tendered within the timeframe.

As soon as the threat email was received, bomb detection and disposal squads searched all the locations, but did not find anything suspicious. Police then traced the location from which the email was sent, following which a team visited Vadodara and nabbed all the three accused, said a crime branch officer.

The three accused were handed over to the MRA Marg police station, where the FIR regarding the hoax mail was registered. They have been booked under sections 505A (publishing or circulating statements, rumours or report that intend to cause fear or alarm to public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquility) and 506 (II) (criminal intimidation including threat to cause death or grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.

The Mumbai Police have received around 60 threat phone calls this year and more than 30 people have been arrested in connection with these calls.