E-Paper
Hoax threats, Air India crash link: Inside techie's revenge plot for unrequited love
Using anonymous accounts, Rene Joshilda sent hoax bomb emails, including one to the medical college on whose hostel the ill-fated AI-171 crashed.
Unrequited love, vengeance and a big cyber crime bust - A senior consultant, Rene Joshilda, used her technical skills to frame the man who rejected her and married someone else.
Using anonymous accounts, Rene sent numerous hoax bomb emails, including one to the medical college on whose hostel building the ill-fated AI-171 crashed on June 13. However, a small slip-up led to her arrest in Chennai.
One-sided love, big revenge plot
Rene Joshilda is an engineer trained in Robotics, and had been working as a senior consultant at Deloitte in Chennai since 2022.
She was in love with one Divij Prabhakar, but he never reciprocated. Rene dreamt she would one day marry Divij, but was left shattered when he married someone else.
Blinded by the will to take revenge, Rene decided to use her technical knowledge to spread panic with hoax bomb threats. She did so using different email IDs, some of which were in Divij's name.
According to police, she used fake email IDs, virtual private networks (VPNs), and the dark web to mask her identity and hide her location.
"We were tracking her for a long time. She was very smart and didn't reveal her virtual trail, but due to a small mistake of hers, we tracked her and caught her from her house in Chennai," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sharad Singhal told news agency PTI.
Her mails were meticulously timed to create panic, and usually came ahead of religious processions or visits by VIPs, police said.
Rene sent 13 threat emails to Narendra Modi Stadium, four to Geneva Liberal School, three to Divya Jyoti School and one to BJ Medical College, police said.
Besides, she also sent such mails to locations in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Telangana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana, police said.
Threat linked to Air India crash
One of Rene Joshilda's threatening mails also involved the Air India plane crash of June 13, India’s worst aviation disaster in decades. She had sent an e-mail to BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad, saying the crash was orchestrated and not an accident.
"I think now you know power. Like we sent you mail yesterday we crashed the Air India plane with our former CM. We know the police would have thought that the plane crash was a hoax and ignored it," a mail to the medical college sent after the crash read.
"Well done to our pilot. Now you know we are not playing. Now you know," the mail further said.
All but one person aboard the AI-171 died in the deadly plane crash, and the total death toll stands at 260, including 19 non-passengers. The plane had crashed on the medical college's hostel building within seconds of take-off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
(With PTI inputs)
