Youth held for sending threat mail to news channel

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a 20-year-old for sending a threat mail to the office of a leading news channel in Mumbai.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a 20-year-old for sending a threat mail to the office of a leading news channel in Mumbai.

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The mail, sent on August 7, had threatened to blow up the office of Aaj Tak news channel.

The ATS cracked the case in just four days despite undertaking a mammoth door-to-door verification in at least 18,000 homes to nab the accused.

The mail, sent using mail ID yuvraj.patil00@gmail.com, read “Stop me if you can. Imran Azar Khan Hereby Challenges to blast Aaj Tak head office in Mumbai on 12, August 2010.”

The ATS arrested Sagar Kashyap, a second year Computer Science student and resident of New Railway Colony in Kurla, for sending the mail.

“He claims to have sent it for fun,” sources told HT.

An officer said that since the mail was received a week before the Independence Day, the ATS did not want to take it lightly.

“We first verified the e-mail ID and traced the youth who was using that. But when we learnt that he had not sent the mail we verified the IP address and zeroed down to a small time textile trader in Ghatkopar,” an investigator said.

Officials obtained details of the 18,000 net subscribers of the company and visited every home and finally arrested Kashyap. Investigations were headed by Additional Commissioner of Police Sukhvinder Singh.

Police Inspector Nasir Kulkarni said Kashyap would remain in custody until August 16. “Kashyap started hacking into networks of other people after his connection had crashed eight months back,” an officer said.