Call threatening to 'blow up' Rashtrapati Bhavan turns out to be hoax

NEW DELHI: Security officials were thrown into a tizzy when a man called up the police control room this evening threatening to "blow up" the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The call, however, turned out to be a hoax.

When the caller was traced, it emerged that he was the same man who had called up the control room half an hour earlier and threatened about having planted bombs, which also was declared a hoax, senior police officials said.

The first call was received by the control room around 6 PM in which the caller asked for the personal number of former city police commissioner B S Bassi.

When refused, he started demanding that he be connected to Bassi directly. But, when the operator refused to do so, he threatened about planting bombs.

"The number from which the call was made was found to be registered to an address in central Delhi's Daryaganj. Teams were rushed there and thorough checks were conducted in an around the area but no bomb was found," DCP (Central) Parmaditya said.

Meanwhile, the police kept calling back on the number and around an hour later, the man picked up the phone and confessed that he had had a heated argument with his wife and was agitated over it.

It was declared a hoax call. The caller's last location was traced to south-west Delhi's Sagarpur area and teams were sent to apprehend him, a senior official said.

However, by then the man had already made the other threat call.

It was around 6.30 PM that the police control room received the call in which the man theatened to blow up the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Several teams, along with bomb disposal squads, were rushed to the premises of the President's Estate and the elite units of Delhi Police -- Special Cell, Crime Branch and Security wing -- were also taken along.

"The caller threatened to blow up Rashtrapati Bhavan. A thorough check was conducted, which took hours, and it turned out to be a hoax call," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said.

Once traced, the caller turned out to be the same man and another team was rushed to nab him from his last traced location in Sagarpur.