After three similar bomb hoax calls in a week to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), police officials in Bengaluru have finally arrested the culprit who had made these calls.
The man identified as Aditya Rao is a 35-year-old chef and had also made a bomb hoax call to the Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) railway station.
Police along with Internal Security Division (ISD) personnel caught the accused near Baiyappanahalli.
The series of phone calls began on August 20, when a call was received by the Nodal Manager at KIA informing him that a bomb was placed in the lobby of the airport.
A second hoax call was made on August 22 to the Nodal Officer at the KIA informing that a bomb was placed in the luggage of AirAsia India flights heading to either Kolkata or Thiruvananthapuram.
The calls continued on Monday when AirAsia India received hoax messages involving two of their flights, delaying one of them. “AirAsia India received a hoax message involving two flights. The caller reported that a bomb was placed on board our flights i5 1426 from Bengaluru to Pune and i5 1516 from Bengaluru to Hyderabad. All precautionary measures and checks were initiated and the call was established to be a hoax,” an AirAsia India spokesperson confirmed to TNM.
A similar call was also placed to the KSR Railway Station in the city on Monday in which the caller reportedly spoke in Hindi.
The suspect used two SIM cards to make the calls and would switch off his phone as soon as he hung up.
The calls had sent police officials into a tizzy. Police had narrowed down the search and confirmed to TNM earlier that the calls were being made by the same person. However, they had not been able to identify him or attach a motive to the calls. "We have not yet been able to identify who the person is but we are investigating a few leads. The caller appears to be changing his location," a police officer at the Bengaluru airport police station had earlier confirmed.