Ahmedabad: Kids make hoax call, cops rattled

AHMEDABAD: More than 2,500 years ago, Aesop had observed in his book of fables, “If you choose bad companions, no one will believe that you are anything but bad yourself.” A 11-year-old kid learned this truth the hard way, when upon instigation of a friend he tried to pull a prank on Ahmedabad police from his mother’s phone.
The boy had called up police control room on Monday morning and said he had seen four armed men plant a bomb in a dustbin near Shyam Villa in Shahwadi. In view of the Rath Yatra scheduled on July 4, city police and security agencies immediately reacted, and different teams including dog squads and bomb squads were sent in response to the threat.
Teams of cyber cell and crime branch also reached the spot and traced the location of the phone. “We tracked the address of the phone and found out that two kids had pulled a prank on cops,” said ACP, B C Solanki.”
“The minors were questioned in the presence of child officers on Thursday. We have handed over the case to Narol police for further investigation according sections of Juvenile Justice Act,” Solanki said.
Cops learned during questioning that the boy had been provoked by another 11-year-old boy, his friend, to make the call and create trouble for police.
“We have warned the father of the instigator to keep an eye on his kid so that he doesn’t end up creating more trouble,” said an investigator who said both the kids belonged to families hailing from UP, and their parents worked in the city.
“The other kid told the boy who made the call that he had seen in films how police can be disturbed by hoax calls, and insisted that he use his mother’s phone to make the call,” said an investigator.
Police had reacted promptly to the threatening information. “At first the bomb disposal squad verified that there was no bomb in the dustbin and then the dog squad picked up the smell of a hadkerchief which was found at the spot and followed the scent,” said a senior police official.