Spurned lover sends ATS on wild-goose chase

To avenge being beaten up by girl's uncle, he tried to implicate him in imaginary plots to blow up Dadar station and even assassinate the CM

ATTEMPTS to avenge being rejected by a girl and getting beaten up by her family members led a 27-year-old man from Mulund to implicate the girl's uncle in cooked-up plots to blow up Dadar station and the BSE and even assassinate the CM.

The man's repeated hoax calls to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) sent them into a tizzy followed by a month-long wild goose chase, which culminated in his arrest last week.

Sanjay Babar made advances to a youngster in January and began stalking her. Irritated, she confided in her family, and her uncle, Vijay Kamble, beat up Babar.

Fuming at the insult, Babar called up the ATS control room last month and said Kamble was planning to blow up Dadar railway station.

He even gave the cops Kamble's cellphone number and said he was using it to keep in touch with his handlers. With a grave threat perception on the city during that period, security was beefed up and the ATS began to trace Kamble.

Kamble's questioning revealed that he was a vegetable vendor with no terror links and he was let off. A week later, the ATS received yet another call from Babar claiming that Kamble was gathering resources to plant bombs at the BSE and Hutatma Chowk.

Worried about security for the ongoing World Cup, the ATS could not afford to take the call lightly. Kamble was picked up for questioning again and let off.

"Suspecting the call was to avenge an enmity, we asked Kamble to identify who could be trying to implicate him," said ATS Chief and Additional Director General of Police Rakesh Maria.

Barely a week passed by before the ATS got a call again. This time, the caller claimed that Kamble was in touch with the ISI and was planning to assassinate Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan.

The police stepped up vigil and were determined to catch the hoax caller. Tracing the numbers took time as all the calls were made from different PCOs.
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Last week, the police finally managed to trace and arrest Babar.

"When we questioned him, he broke down and confessed that he wanted to avenge the insult of being beaten up by the girl's uncle," said Maria.