A man was detained in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad on Thursday for allegedly making a hoax call to the police and claiming that a bomb was kept inside the Taj Mahal in Agra, reported news agency PTI.
A Satish Ganesh, additional director general (ADG) of police, Agra zone, said the man has been detained for questioning and he seems to be mentally unstable. "Prima facie it seems that he is mentally unstable and is probably under treatment. We are probing why he made such a call. The Taj Mahal was reopened for visitors after about an hour and 45 minutes," he told PTI.
The man, who hails from Kasganj, is living at his maternal grandmother's house in a Firozabad village, according to the police.
After the threat call to 112 emergency response number of the Uttar Pradesh police at around 9am, nearly 1000 tourists were evacuated from the monument in Agra. Singh had claimed that the bomb placed at the Taj Mahal could go off at any moment.
Security personnel soon took over the complex and later declared it safe for visitors after they carried out extensive search and screening operations and could not locate any explosives, officials said.
{{/usCountry}}Security personnel soon took over the complex and later declared it safe for visitors after they carried out extensive search and screening operations and could not locate any explosives, officials said.
{{/usCountry}}Tourists were told that the Taj Mahal was being closed because of a VVIP visit to prevent panic and after their exit both eastern and western gates of the 17th-century monument were closed, said Ganesh. “Nothing objectionable was found inside the Taj Mahal premises in the search by field unit and thus the call about a bomb threat in Taj Mahal was deemed to be a hoax call,” he said.
The monument, which is conserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and protected by the personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), was reopened to visitors at 11.15am, officials added.
Officials told HT, on the condition of anonymity, that the caller alleged anomalies in the conduct of an ongoing army recruitment camp in Agra, which he claimed had led to his rejection.