Bomb hoax call to five-star hotel: Two men from Vapi arrested

The police have arrested two men from Gujarat’s Vapi for allegedly making a hoax bomb call to a five-star hotel close to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport and seeking a ransom of ₹5 crore

The police have arrested two men from Gujarat’s Vapi for allegedly making a hoax bomb call to a five-star hotel close to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport and seeking a ransom of ₹5 crore.

The Lalit hotel in Andheri East Vijay Bate/HT Photo

The duo, Vikaramkumar Shashibhushan Singh, 25, and Isukumar Omprakash Singh, 19, who hail from Bihar reportedly told the police that the idea to make a hoax call came to them after they watched South Indian action films. They bought two inexpensive mobile handsets and seven SIM cards to execute their plan, an officer attached to Sahar police station said.

The front desk at the Lalit hotel in Andheri (east) received two calls on Monday. The first call informed the hotel staff that four bombs had been planted on the premises. Another call, made a short while later, demanded a ransom of ₹5 crore to provide the location of these bombs and knowledge on how to diffuse them.

The hotel manager informed the Sahar police station about the bomb threat at 6.10 pm. Soon after, a police team rushed to the hotel along with the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad and a dog squad. Meanwhile, another team started tracking the locations of the phone numbers.

“We traced one of the phone numbers to Vapi and with the help of the local police picked up Isukumar from his residence at 3 am on Wednesday,” the police officer said. Upon questioning him, the police found the whereabouts of Vikaramkumar and detained him as well. The duo was brought to the city.

Isukumar allegedly told the police that before the lockdown in 2019 he had visited the hotel for some work. He and his accomplice, who were in need of money, planned to make a bomb scare call and demand ransom. They thereafter searched for the hotel’s front desk number on the internet.

“The two thought that the hotel staff would panic on hearing about the bombs and would agree to give them the ransom money,” the officer said.

They had not logged on to their social media accounts or even watched the news after making the calls and were unaware of the fact that the police were looking for them. Hence, they did not appear to have made any effort either to flee or destroy the evidence, the officer said.

The officer added that the duo had confessed to have made the threat calls.