The suspect who had allegedly made a bomb hoax call to the Mangaluru Airport on Monday has surrendered himself to the police in Bengaluru at the office of the state police chief Neelamani Raju.
The suspect has been identified as one Aditya Rao who had previously been probed for making bomb threat hoax calls to airports and railway stations in the state. He is not part of any terror module, according to preliminary information. Police sources also confirm that Aditya Rao has claimed that he kept the bag of explosives, without a trigger at the Mangaluru airport on Monday. However, police say he seemed mentally disturbed, and his claims have to be verified.
Following the safe detonation of the explosive, police had released a photo of the suspect along with the autorickshaw he came in to the airport premises. Subsequent investigation led the police to the auto driver who allegedly told the police about Rao. According to police sources, family members of Rao were detained prior to his surrender.
In August 2018, Aditya was booked and questioned by police for allegedly issuing bomb threats directed at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) and KSR City railway station on telephone. He was arrested during that time by the Internal Security Division (ISD) personnel.
During the interrogation in 2018, he claimed that he applied for a job as a security guard at the airport, but was denied the job because he was overqualified. Holding a grudge over denial of job, he allegedly made bomb hoax calls.
The FIR in the Airport Police Station was registered under IPC 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) and 507 (Criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication).
In a call on August 20, Aditya had allegedly called the tele-enquiry and warned the KIA terminal manager Vimara claiming, "There is a bomb in your airport may be at he parking/lobby area, it will exploding in about 11, before 11 o clock (sic.)”
In the second call on August 27th to AirAsia, Aditya threatened that there were bombs on flights.
A similar call was also made to the Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) Railway Station in the city on August 29 after he had reportedly picked a quarrel with officials at the KSR railway station over payment for using the cloak room.
According to the Bengaluru City police officials, Rao is a resident of Manipal in Udupi district and also has Engineering and a Master of Business Administration graduate.
Prior to being apprehended by the Bengaluru city police, police said that Rao was a junior manager at the Bengaluru branch of an international bank, but in 2014 has quit after seven-years of service and then worked as a security guard at a school in Udupi.
(With Inputs from StoryInfinity.com)