Mumbai: Man held for hoax call about 'bomb blast' in Kamathipura

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Mumbai Police arrested a man on Tuesday for allegedly calling the police control room, falsely claiming that there would be a bomb blast at Kamathipura, an official said, reported the PTI.

Around 11 pm on Monday, a person called the control room and said there would be a bomb blast on the 12th lane of Kamathipura in south Mumbai, the official told PTI.

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The police pressed into service its Bombay Detection and Disposal Squad and dog squad and vacated the buildings on the lane, the official said.

After an extensive search, the police found nothing suspicious in the area and declared the call a hoax, the official said.

Meanwhile, a team from Nagpada police station tried to track the number used to make the hoax call, but it was unreachable. The police then used technical evidence to trace the caller and arrested him in the early hours of Tuesday, he added.

Meanwhile, last week, Mumbai Police had arrested a 36-year-old man for allegedly making a hoax call about a 'terror attack' at the iconic Hotel Taj in south Mumbai, an official said on Friday, according to the PTI.

The crime branch began an investigation after the city police's main control room on Thursday received a call about the 'terror attack', the official said.

The caller identified himself as Mukesh Singh from Ghaziabad and claimed that two Pakistani nationals were about to enter Mumbai via the sea route to blow up Hotel Taj, which was among the targets during the 26/11 attacks.

The crime branch's unit 9 traced the caller to Santacruz in Mumbai and arrested him. The hoax call was to create panic among the people, the official said.

The police identified the caller as Jagdamba Prasad Singh, a resident of Golibar Road in the area.

Singh has been handed over to the Santacruz police and a case has been registered against him under Indian Penal Code section 505 (1) (B), which pertains to intention to cause fear or alarm to the public.

In an another incident, the bomb detection personnel along with sniffer dogs searched the Maharashtra secretariat in South Mumbai on Thursday after police received a phone call about an explosive being placed in the high-security complex, but it turned out to be a false alarm, an official said, reported the PTI.

(with PTI inputs)