Amid a spate of hoax bomb threats to airlines that have thrown flight schedules haywire, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reportedly received one on its customer care number, with the caller identifying himself as the “CEO of Lashkar-e-Taiba”.
The call was made to the helpline number around 11 am on Saturday (November 16), NDTV reported. The caller, who identified himself as the “CEO” of the terror group LeT, reportedly sang a song before threatening to blow up the central bank with a bomb.
Also read: Bomb hoaxes: Militant groups in West, South Asian ‘state actors’ among suspects
The Mumbai police have registered a case and are trying to trace the caller. The dreaded group LeT was behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Spate of bomb hoaxes
Hundreds of flights have been affected in the past two months with airlines receiving hoax bomb threats by the dozen.
Earlier this month, a 35-year-old writer called Jagdish Uikey was arrested in Maharashtra for allegedly sending 354 hoax emails targeting government offices, flights, and railway stations. Last month, a teenager was detained in Chhattisgarh for sending hoax emails to airlines, apparently to frame his friend.
The central government last month issued an advisory warning social media platforms to strictly follow IT rules and make “reasonable efforts” to “promptly” take down bomb threat posts or else “be held liable”. The IT Ministry said in the advisory that not only do bomb hoaxes affect citizens but also destabilise the country’s economic security.
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