An anonymous call in the early hours of Thursday to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s State Headquarters at the AKG Centre here, stating that a bomb would explode soon on its premises, kept the police on tenterhooks for nearly two hours. Police are now confirming whether it was a prank call or not.
According to City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh, the call appeared to be made using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology and inspections by the bomb squad and the anti-sabotage wing indicated that it could be a prank call. The Cyber Cell had been entrusted with the job of tracing the call, suspected to have come from a foreign country and which had allegedly issued threats to CPI (M) leaders including State unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
“The Cyber Cell is already on the job. We suspect the call was made from abroad,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
According to the police, there were two calls made to the landline at the party HQ, with the first, in Malayalam, coming at 4.08 a.m. and the second, at 4.27 a.m.. The second call, reportedly in Hindi, was made from a number that read 100570262. The Centre staff immediately alerted the City Control Room, following which the bomb squad, the anti-sabotage wing and a police team led by S. Ajeetha Begum, Deputy Commissioner of Police, and other senior police officers rushed to the spot and began inspecting the area. By 6 a.m., it was confirmed that there were no explosives in the building, Mr. Venkatesh said.
The Cantonment Police have registered a case.
