The News Minute | September 1, 2014 | 11:19 am IST“Pay me Rs. 75 lakh or I’ll blow up this mall,” a person threatened a mall owner in the Cochin city over telephone. The man was trying his luck to earn easy money. The hoax call was made by this person thinking that the mall owner would accept his demand and pay him money to avoid any danger to the mall’s reputation. The owner, however, informed the city police and the police found the warning to be a bluff. What surprised the police was that it was the first time that someone was demanding a ransom for such a prank. “In most cases in which we usually receive hoax bomb threats, the caller’s purpose is to play a prank or to get out of having to do something. People also make calls to take revenge on someone else by pinning the crime on them,” said the city police commissioner, the Hindu reported. People who do such things do not realize the wider implications of their silly acts. The city police commissioner said that ‘such calls were a huge burden for the police force as time and energy of a large number of officers went into addressing such a call.’ Such callers are booked under Section 118 (b) of the Kerala Police Act which attracts an imprisonment upto three years.