Security at major hotels upped after ‘threat emails’

The Mumbai Police have beefed up security in five-star hotels located near the international airport and in Andheri, Juhu, Santacruz and Mira Road after a few of

The Mumbai Police have beefed up security in five-star hotels located near the international airport and in Andheri, Juhu, Santacruz and Mira Road after a few of them received emails from an unknown sender threatening a bomb blast by Lashkar-e-Taiba.

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The anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and crime branch officials are conducting parallel inquiries. However, a crime branch official said the email appears to be a hoax. The Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) has been deployed in the premises of the hotels.

The emails that most of the Mumbai hotels received were generated by their websites after the sender wrote the threat messages in the comments section. Joint commissioner of police, Santosh Rastogi, said, “Four five-star hotels in the western suburbs have received threat emails and we are looking into it.” A senior ATS officer said they are trying to trace the sender.

Deputy superintendent of police, Mira Road, Shantaram Walvi, said a former MLA and his hotel in the area also received the emails. The subject of the emails read: “Lashkar-e-Taiba wants management of your hotel”. The police said the sender demanded bitcoins as ransom. “We rushed a team of ATS and BDDS to the hotel and intensified security arrangement there,” Walvi said.