Salem man held for making hoax bomb call to Mettur dam

SALEM: A 53-year-old man was arrested in Salem for allegedly making a hoax bomb threat phone call to Mettur Dam on Saturday. The suspect is identified as Mahalingam from Salem. According to the sources, on Friday around 7 pm, the control room in Chennai received a bomb threat phone call to the Mettur Dam.

Immediately, a special police team, headed by Vijayakumar, DSP of Mettur in Salem, along with government officials, conducted a raid at  Mettur Dam on Friday. However, they did not find any explosives.On Saturday after further investigation, Mettur Police arrested Mahalingam for making the phone call.

An officer from the Salem district police said, “A few days ago, Mahalingam, a drunkard, bought an old SIM card from a person for Rs 100. But the number kept getting numerous wrong number calls.  At one point Mahalingam was enraged and planned to trap the person who gave him the SIM card. Upon receiving the alert from Chennai, we traced his number and arrested him in Mecheri on Saturday afternoon.”