A 62-year-old man has been arrested for threatening to blow up a Bengaluru metro station if employees at the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) “mentally tortured” his ex-wife “after duty hours”. The man has had a history of mental illness.
Police identified the sender as Rajiv, a resident of Belthur, according to a report by The Indian Express.
According to investigators, the threat was sent to the official BMRCL email ID from rajivsettyptp@gmail.com at around 11.25 pm on November 13.
The email read: “If ever I come to know that your metro employees are torturing mentally to my past divorced wife Padmini after duty hours, be careful, one of your metro station gets blasted … I am also a terrorists liker PATRIOTIC against KANNADIGAS", the report added.
Who is the resident?
Akshay M Hakke, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), said Rajiv has been undergoing treatment at Bengaluru’s Nimhans for the past five years.
“A diploma holder, Rajiv was married and separated from his wife 15 years ago. She was not a Metro employee as he mentioned in the threat email,” Hakke said, according to the report.
He added that Rajiv was living alone in a rented room and was being supported intermittently by friends and family members.
{{/usCountry}}He added that Rajiv was living alone in a rented room and was being supported intermittently by friends and family members.
{{/usCountry}}Following a complaint by Rathish Thomas, Assistant Executive Engineer (Cybersecurity) at BMRCL, the Wilson Garden police registered an FIR under Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (criminal intimidation).
Also Read | In bizarre email, man threatens to blast Bengaluru metro station if his ex-wife faces ‘torture’ from staff: Report
What happened?
Officials said the email, sent from a Gmail account at around 11:25 pm on November 13, contained alarming remarks, as per a report by the NDTV.
The sender warned that if BMRCL employees were found “torturing” his ex-wife, identified as Padmini, after working hours, he would blow up one of the metro stations. He described himself as a “terrorist-like patriotic person” opposed to Kannadigas.
A senior BMRCL officer lodged a formal complaint with the police soon after receiving the message. Authorities have registered a case and initiated a detailed investigation to trace the location of the sender of the email, said the report.
In recent months, Bengaluru has faced a series of hoax bomb threats. Earlier this year, cyber investigators tracked down a woman software professional, Rene Joshilda, accused of sending multiple fake threat emails to various schools in the city. The alerts first came to light on June 14 after a prominent public school received an email warning of a bomb.