Bomb hoax: Minor posted messages to fix neighbour in false case

The city police have found that the 17-year-old apprehended from Chhattisgarh in the bombs-on-flights hoax case had opened an account on X in the name of his neighbour, with whom he had a dispute, to implicate him in a false case

MUMBAI: The city police have found that the 17-year-old apprehended from Chhattisgarh in the bombs-on-flights hoax case had opened an account on X in the name of his neighbour, with whom he had a dispute, to implicate him in a false case. He posted three messages from the social media handle, stating that bombs had been placed on two IndiGo and one Air India flights.

Bomb hoax: Minor posted messages to fix neighbour in false case

The police on Tuesday detained the teenager from Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh and, also, his 34-year-old neighbour, in whose name the account on X had been opened. The duo was brought to Mumbai for questioning. While the 33-year-old runs a shop in Rajnandgaon district, the 17-year-old is a college student.

The interrogation of the minor revealed that he and the 33-year-old had extended financial help to each other in the past and had disputes over the transactions. In order to implicate the neighbour in a false case, the teenager opened an X account in the former’s name and posted the hoax messages.

“Around three months ago, the minor suspect had allegedly registered a case of unnatural sex against the 33-year-old in a local police station. It appears that the minor wanted to take revenge on the shop owner and, therefore, created an X account in the neighbour’s name and posted the threat messages between 1:20am to 3:30am on October 14,” said a police officer.

He also said that they haven’t found anything against the shop owner, except for the fact that the X account was in his name but was opened and was being handled by the 17-year-old.

The shop owner’s mobile phone and the minor’s laptop have been seized for investigation to collect electronic evidence. Based on the complaint from the senior security executive of IndiGo Airlines about the threat received on X, the Sahar police registered an FIR under sections 125, 351 (4), 353 (1) (b) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against the teenager.

The threats were posted on X, tagging @indiGo6E handle, which stated that time bombs had been placed on a Mumbai-Muscat flight, and there was six kg of RDX in a Mumbai-New York Air India flight and terrorists inside it will hijack it in the next 20 minutes. These threats were received at 1.44am on Monday. After the X post was traced to Chhattisgarh, a city police team went there, nabbed the two, and brought them to Mumbai on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Sahar police have registered another FIR against unknown persons after a bomb threat against a Mumbai-Singapore flight was received on October 15.

A third FIR was registered at the Airport Police Station against unknown persons in connection with a hoax call related to a Mumbai-Darbhanga flight.