A 38-year-old animation professional was arrested today for allegedly making series of hoax calls about bombs being plated at the Pune railway station, city airport and on a Mumbai-bound flight from Bhubaneshwar, police said.
His calls forced the airport authorities to make an emergency landing of GoAir's Bhubaneshwar-Mumbai flight this morning, they said.
Sanjeev Mishra, who hails from Odisha, was today apprehended in a joint operation by the Pune Anti Terror Squad (ATS) and Government Railway Police (GRP), said GRP police inspector Abhay Parmar.
"The accused had called Pune police control room in the wee hours today and said he has planted bombs at Pune railway station and Pune airport. The control room immediately alerted ATS and GRP. However, nothing suspicious was found at both the places," he said.
According to the officer, the GRP later called up the accused on his phone who told them that they are a group of terrorists who have infiltrated in the country through Kashmir and claimed to have planted bombs at various places like Mumbai, Pune and other cities.
"Meanwhile, we tracked his location and found that he was on the Pune-Solapur Highway, where he was finally zeroed in by our team," he said.
ATS officials said the accused even called up the Bhubaneshwar airport, where he created a scare by saying that a bomb has been planted on Bhubaneshwar-Mumbai GoAir flight.
"The flight too was diverted in between and had to do emergency landing at Nagpur airport at around 9.30 am," he said.
Primary investigations reveal that Mishra has claimed that he was harassed by cops at the Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar airports recently and that is why he decided to harass police personnel.
"GoAir flight G8243 took off from Bhubaneshwar for Mumbai at 8.20 AM and post receiving the bomb threat call, was diverted to Nagpur and landed at 9.29 AM," GoAir had said in a statement.
(Reopens BOM25)
Meanwhile, in Bhubaneswar, Commissioner of Police R P
Sharma said Maharastra Police has detained one Sanjeev Kumar Mishra, a resident of Bhubaneswar and presently staying at Pune. Mishra was picked up by Pune police at Daund in connection with the case.
Stating that both the police of Odisha and Maharastra have registered separate cases against Mishra, Sharma said the accused was identified by tracking the mobile phone used to trigger the bomb scare.
Asked whether Mishra had any terror link, Sharma said Maharastra Police was interrogating him.
"So far, there is no evidence of his link with any terror group," the Commissioner of Police said adding Mishra had left Odisha state capital six months ago and was presently staying at Pune and running an animation studio.
A police officer involved in the investigation said Odisha Police would soon visit Pune and take Mishra on remand.
