Hoax caller who threatened to blow up Nabanna arrested

The police arrested a 52-year-old man on charges of making a hoax call to the control room of Kolkata Police on Sunday night,  claiming that the state secretariat Nabanna will be demolished with a bomb explosion.

Police said the accused Anirudha Ghosh, who is reportedly mentally deranged, was remanded in judicial custody after being produced before a city court Monday afternoon. Soon after receiving the phone call, the police on Sunday night had initiated a frisking operation in Nabanna. They simultaneously started the task of the tracing the caller.

Police eventually tracked that someone from Kalighat area had made the call and finally arrested Ghosh from his residence at 2B, Kalighat Road late Sunday night.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the person was suffering from mental problems since 1997 and often used to call up his friends and family members to scare them in different ways. When questioned, he told the police that he derives pleasure out of making people get scared.

In reply to the question why he had called up in the helpline number of the Kolkata Police, he said that he had got hold of the number a few days ago  and had been planning to make the prank call for the past few days. 

Finally, he made the call just to scare and to throw the police into a tizzy. Police have seized the mobile phone which he had used to make the prank call. Police came to know that he used to work in a private company a few years ago.

He had to give up the job a he was suffering from depression and now keeps loitering in the Kalighat area.

The accused was booked under section 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian penal Code. He was remanded in judicial custody till July 8 when produced before the court.

Security in Nabanna had been tightened after the police received the call Sunday night. Dog squads and bomb disposal squads rushed to the state secretariat. Senior officers too went to the spot and monitored the frisking operation.

The issue of the hoax call claiming that a bomb was planted in Nabanna had cropped up in the state Assembly as well when Chief Minister was taking part in a debate over the police budget. She had stated that the task of the police has become more challenging as now the news spread much faster than before.

Though a mentally affected person had made the hoax call on Sunday, the matter will be looked into to ascertain whether it is a new tactic.