The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials apprehended a 21-year-old Jharkhand native for allegedly making a hoax call to the police control room in June this year, claiming that terrorists are present on the premises of Dadar and Parel railway stations.
The suspect has been handed over to the Dadar Government Railway Police (GRP) for further probe and the police is probing why the suspect had made the said call. The arrested suspect has been identified as Rahul Shripati Ravidas (21), who hails from the Girdih district in Jharkhand.
According to the police, on June 28, around 4:55 pm, a call was received by the Mumbai Police control room and the caller had informed that "terrorists" had entered the premises of Parel and Dadar railway stations. The said information was then immediately shared with the GRP after which checks and searches were carried out at both the railway stations and the information turned out to be a hoax.
The Dadar GRP had registered an offence against an unknown person in this regard and ATS Kalachowki Unit too had initiated a parallel probe in the matter. The police then began tracing the location of the number from which the call was made and the locations changed frequently from Dharavi to Panvel to Kalyan as the suspect used to switch off his phone. The ATS officials had recently learnt that the suspect involved in the case is in Jharkhand, police said.
An ATS team then left for Jharkhand and detained suspect Rahul Ravidas on Saturday. He was then brought to Mumbai and was handed over to the Dadar GRP for further investigation. The police sources said that Ravidas has a theft case registered against him at Kurla railway station. Ravidas is being questioned by the police as to why he made the said call, sources said.
On August 9, an officer at Byculla railway station had received information via the police control room that four bombs were placed at strategic locations at Byculla station and that they would explode at 3.40 am.
The duty officer alerted the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) and the dog squad. The entire station premises from platform number one to four were searched thoroughly, but the information turned out to be a hoax. The police had traced a Bhandup resident in that case, who had allegedly made the said call.
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