Mumbai Police may take custody of email hoaxer

Mumbai: With the Hyderabad police arresting the man who allegedly sent hoax emails claiming of possible hijacking of airplanes to carry out terror strikes, the Mumbai police is mulling over taking his custody for questioning him. The accused, Vamsi Krishna, had also sent an email to the Mumbai police, claiming he had overheard the alleged conspiracy.

The hijack threat email, sent on Saturday, has turned out to be a hoax. The Hyderabad Police Task Force arrested the man who sent the email to the Mumbai police commissioner. It then came to be known that he had done this with an aim to cancel a flight taking off to Mumbai. In the email, Krishna allegedly pretended to be a woman in order to be away from the police’s radar.

According to the task force, the man had promised his Chennai-based girlfriend to take her on a trip to Mumbai but he fell short of money. So he decided to create an emergency situation so that all the flights would remain cancelled from Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai airports.

“We are taking details of the accused from our counterparts in Hyderabad and, if needed, will take his custody for interrogating him,” Sanjay Saxena, joint commissioner of police, (crime), said.

The email had mentioned Krishna had overheard a group of six people talking about hijacking an aircraft with the help of their “entire gang” of 23 people. Krishna, a Hyderabad-based travel agent had mentioned three airports as potential places to witness hijack.

Following Krishna’s call, security was beefed up at the Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad airports. Krishna was traced through his Internet Protocol (IP) address.