Chennai: 37-year-old man held for texting hoax bomb message

Chennai: The government railway police arrested a 37-year-old man for sending a hoax message that a bomb would go off in Jodhpur train here on Friday night.

According to police, based on the mobile number, they arrested A. Iqbal Hussain, in Royapettah. Iqbal is a supplyer of drinking water cans and he used to alert police department on various issues. However, the arrested person confessed to have sent such hoax message for making police personnel feel sensational, police said, adding that Iqbal had been watching news on channels on Friday, which were busy airing sensational news like Sabarimala chaos and train accident at Amritsar in Punjab state.

“So, Iqbal decided to create one more sensational news and he preferred to send a hoax message to the police control room on Friday night,” said a senior police officer.

The police helpline received message, which stated that “Lashkar-e- Tayyaba has threatened that anytime bomb will explode in the Jodhpur train. And Intelligence has issued high alert,”  explained the official.

Later, Egmore GRP police woke up to the message and registered a case and further inquiry revealed that Iqbal a resident of Royapettah had sent the message. Police arrested him. Over 500 passengers on board were asked to alight from the train and bomb-detecting squad conducted searches in passenger coaches, loco and parcel vans. The search lasted for about two hours and 30 minutes and no suspicious material for found. The train left Egmore station around 12.30 pm against its original scheduled time of 10.10 am.