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Mumbai cops get ‘26/11-like’ attack warning from Pakistan number
Mumbai police on Saturday tracked a barber from Virar, and detained him for questioning after several WhatsApp messages were received on the Mumbai Traffic Control Room number late on Friday night, warning of a 26/11 like terror strike in the city.
Mumbai police on Saturday tracked a barber from Virar, and detained him for questioning after several WhatsApp messages were received on the Mumbai Traffic Control Room number late on Friday night, warning of a 26/11 like terror strike in the city.
Prime Facie, said Mumbai police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, the phone from which the threats were issued, had a Pakistan series sim card. Three teams of the Mumbai crime branch are investigating the threats. “We are coordinating with all the central agencies and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS),” said the CP.
“We are not taking the threat lightly. Any call we receive, we treat it seriously. In the past several of them have turned out to be hoaxes,” said Phansalkar adding that the person who sent the WhatsApp messages had also mentioned a few other numbers which were being investigated. In addition, Worli police has registered a case of criminal intimidation (section 506-2 of the IPC) against unknown persons.
The series of WhatsApp messages in Hindi began coming in 10.50 pm onwards on Friday on the Mumbai traffic police control room number, and in the main claimed that seven Indians were part of a terror plot that would be worse than 26/11. The person also claimed to be from Pakistan. More sensationally, the messenger claimed: “UP ATS karwana chahti hai Mumbai udaana.” (UP ATS wants to create terror in Mumbai).
“The person had also shared 7 numbers of people who are allegedly in on the conspiracy. The messages claimed to unleash various dire scenarios ranging from a killing not unlike that of the tailor Kanhaiya Lal at Udaipur for supporting former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s objectionable comment on Prophet Mohammed to carrying out a killing similar to that of singer Sidhu Moosewala’s,” said a police officer.
One of the messages read: ‘Hope you remember the 9/11 attack on the US or should I share the dates. If one Osama Bin Laden or Ajmal Kasab or Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has died, lots of such people are still present.”
Meanwhile, when HT tried to call the Pakistan number that was shared by the police, it was switched off, but other journalists who managed to get someone on the line say that the person who picked up identified himself as a certain Mohammed Imtiyaz and who claimed to be a gardener in Lahore. He told the calling journalists that neither does he have WhatsApp on his phone nor does he know how to operate it. He told them he was fed up of receiving calls from journalists in Mumbai.
Another number, of one of the purported 7 Indians who were in one the terror plot, was found to be of a police officer from the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad. When HT spoke to the officer he said, “Our number are available on our website and it seems the unknown person has picked it up from there and sent it to Mumbai Police.”
The Maharashtra police is already on high-alert following the recovery of ammunition on an unmanned yacht found drifting on the Raigad shore.
