Ticketing agent arrested for WC bomb hoax

HE DID IT JUST FOR KICKS

Mateen Hafeez TNN

Mumbai: The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Friday arrested a 40-year-old ticketing agent on charges of posting threat comments on the Mumbai police’s website a day before the 2011 cricket world cup final between India and Sri Lanka. The suspect, Rajesh Dave, had posed as a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

“Dave was picked up from his residence in Mani Bhavan area in south Mumbai. He had used someone’s phone with a Nashik sim card to post the comment,” said ATS chief Rakesh Maria. However, The cyber crime investigation cell, which was investigating the case parallelly, reached a dead end after it found that the server used for posting the comment was located in Norway.

The comment, posted at 7.22 pm on April 1, read: ‘30 plastic bombs have been planted in the Wankhede stadium. The bombs will be exploded through satellite. Save if you can. Pakistan Zindabad. LeT’. The comment did not have any signature or name attached.

“Dave told us that he had posted the comment just for fun. However, questioning is still on,” added Maria. Dave is married and stays with his wife and mother. “He is into booking railway tickets on commission and is well-versed in technonology. We are still probing his credentials,” said Maria.

DCP Pradip Sawant said Dave, along with others, was earlier summoned by the V P Road police in connection with betting before the final match.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com


The Times of India, April 9, 2011