A former employee of a US-based firm in Bengaluru's RMZ Ecospace Business Park was detained after he made a hoax bomb threat call. Prasad Navaneeth (25), a resident of Bengaluru's Byappanahalli area who hails from Kerala, was formerly a senior associate at the US-based accounting and advisory firm BDO Rise, located in the RMZ Ecospace campus (tech park) in Bellandur on Outer Ring Road (ORR).
Prasad had been instructed to resign due to "poor performance”. While the company attributed their decision to ask him to step down to Prasad’s alleged poor performance, he attributed it to office politics. It was following this that Prasad made the hoax bomb threat.
On Tuesday, Prasad attempted to contact the office several times using his personal mobile phone, but the office staff declined to connect his calls. Around 2 pm, he allegedly declared that he had placed an explosive device within the office premises, indicating that it would detonate within a short span of time. Upon receiving the threat call, representatives from the company promptly notified the police. Shortly thereafter, Prasad made another call from his mobile phone, confessing that his previous claim was false. However, the company had already informed the police by then.
In response to the bomb threat, the police dispatched a dog squad and a bomb disposal squad to the tech park. As a precautionary measure, around 500 employees from the tech park were evacuated. The police soon confirmed that the threat was a hoax. As Prasad had already revealed his details over the phone, he was arrested soon after.