The Cyber police have sent a formal request to Google, asking for details of the Gmail account from which an unidentified person, claiming to have overheard a hijack conspiracy, emailed the Mumbai Police.
The email was sent to Mumbai Police officials on Saturday and the sender claimed to be a woman from Hyderabad. She claimed to have overheard two people discussing a plan to simultaneously hijack three planes in Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.
While security agencies have stepped up vigil at all the airports and the city police and anti-terror agencies have initiated inquiries to verify the seriousness of the claim, the Cyber police are trying to trace the source of the email.
“We have sent a formal request seeking details like the internet protocol address and the details of the email account, and are expecting a response soon,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sanjay Saxena.
Police officials said the investigation into the matter depends on Google’s response, as service providers based out of India are not always compliant with requests from Indian law-enforcement agencies for information about their customers.
“We try to stress the importance of the information for our investigation but they tell us that they have to adhere to the laws of the country where they have headquarters,” said an officer.
Precautions
Meanwhile, the Mumbai Police and the Central Industrial Security Force are undertaking precautionary measures like random checks, nakabandis, increased patrolling, and intelligence gathering.
