Furious at his former girlfriend for severing ties with him, a Vikhroli resident wrote a message threatening a terror attack along with her number and placed it in a popular mall in Thane. The plan, however, backfired, as the same number led the police to him.
According to the Vartak Nagar police, the Viviana Mall management on Sunday contacted them saying they had found their promotional pamphlets with messages scrawled on it threatening a terrorist attack in Mumbai. These had been put up near the toilets in the mall.
“We examined the pamphlets and saw that someone had written ‘Gazva-e-Hind’ and ‘Dadar Siddhivinayak Mandir Boom’ on one of them, and ‘ISIS IS coming, slipper cell is activated’ on another. There were also two different cell phone numbers on both the pamphlets,” senior police inspector Pradeep Giridhar, Vartak Nagar police station said.
Mr Giridhar added that they obtained the registration details of both the numbers and one of them led the police to a woman staying in Navi Mumbai. Upon inquiries, she told the police that the other number was that of her boyfriend, and that both of them work in the same private firm.
“We asked the woman if she suspected anyone of wanting to get her into trouble and she named Ketan Ghodke, with whom she had been in a relationship for the last seven years. She had recently severed ties with him after she met her current boyfriend and this had led to fights between her and Mr. Ghodke,” an officer who was part of the investigations said.
The police subsequently obtained details of Mr. Ghodke, and picked him up from his residence in Surya Nagar, Vikhroli on Sunday. He was taken to the Vartak Nagar police station for inquiries and allegedly broke down and confessed to have scrawled the messages on the pamphlets.
“We have registered a non cognisable complaint against Mr. Ghodke, charging him with statements conducing public mischief under the Indian Penal Code and have detained him. He will be produced in court on Tuesday. We are still questioning him to find out why he specifically chose the Viviana Mall for this,” Mr. Giridhar said.
Recently, a message praising the Islamic State, its head Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, and 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed appeared on a pillar of a bridge in Uran near Mumbai.
Police suspect it to be a handiwork of some mischief- mongers as empty liquor bottles were found at the spot.
