Odisha police to seek remand of hoax bomb caller

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Feb 1:

Odisha police would take hoax bomb threat caller on remand who was arrested in Pune last month, official sources said. The hoax calls made to terminal manager of the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) had prompted the authorities divert a Mumbai-bound GoAir flight to Nagpur.

The investigators are planning to take him on remand to ascertain whether it was just a prank call or there is something more to it.

Commissionerate police would pray the court to take the accused on remand, said Inspector Bharat Chandra Sahu.

Meanwhile, Commisionerate police team have returned from Pune after questioning Sanjeev Mishra in Pune about the hoax bomb threat in Bhubaneswar-Mumbai flight.

Sanjeev is a habitual hoax caller has confessed that he had made the phone call about bomb in aircraft to create fear and panic, the officer said.

On January 23, Sanjeev, identifying himself as Mohapatra, had called up an official of city airport using abusive language in Hindi and Oriya and threatened that there was a bomb in Mumbai-Bhubaneswar flight and all passengers could die.

This triggered a wave of panic and the Mumbai-bound flight made an emergency landing in Nagpur. Thereafter, dog squad and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad of Police Commissionerate did an intense search across the airport for two hours. After no bomb was found, airport authorities had filed a police complaint with the Airfield police station.

Preliminary investigation traced the caller to Pune following which ATS arrested Sanjeev from Maharashtra’s Solapur region.

To find out the reason behind the hoax call, a three-member police team led by SI of Airfield police station and two constables had gone to Pune on January 24.  After reaching Pune, the police team questioned Sanjeev for four hours.

According to police sources, Sanjeev spoke very less and said that he has made such hoax calls many times and that he likes making such calls. He has said that he wanted to create panic and fear in the whole country by the call.

Sanjeev’s father, Nakul Mishra, has said that his son is mentally unstable.