48 hours, 28 hoax calls

Boy wouldn't stop dialling 100 to 'warn' police of a bomb under their feet, did not know call from father's mobile phone could be traced

48 hours, 28 hoax calls

Boy wouldn't stop dialling 100 to 'warn' police of a bomb under their feet, did not know call from father's mobile phone could be traced

He is a cowherd hailing from Gulbarga who the police said one day took his father's second-hand mobile phone with him without being noticed and decided to impress his peer group with it, dialling 100 and warning of bombs in the control room that were not there.

The boy called the control room 28 times in 48 hours, saying the same thing about bombs. Before the Cubbon Park police got hold of him, he had not only made several hoax calls but also called the police names when they asked him to identify himself.

The boy, whose name is not being taken since he is a minor, also managed to alarm the police enough to bring in the sniffer dogs with his first call.

First call

B Krishnappa, police sub-inspector on table number 308, received the first call from mobile phone number 9591628054 that said a bomb had been placed in the control room. The caller said the bomb was to go off "any time now" and asked the police to be careful.

'You're all doomed'

Then followed a flood of calls from the same number the rest of the day and on the following day. When police officers asked the caller to identify himself, he only said he was calling from Shivaji Nagar and hung up with the warning: "You wait and watch, you are all doomed."

Inspector Jagadish tracked the mobile number to Gulbarga and managed to apprehend the boy. The police found that his father, who is a coolie, had purchased a second-hand mobile handset recently and the boy had flicked the phone to flaunt it before his friends.

"The boy wanted to show his friends that he had mobile phone and make an exhibition of cheap thrills like these hoax calls. Little did he know that he could be caught since he was using a mobile phone," said Jagadish. "He has been sent to a remand home." The police said the boy had remembered the toll free number of the control room from somewhere and decided to dial it. They said he claimed to have seen someone place a bomb behind the control room, and that he could even identify the person.

Initially, the police took the matter seriously and did a thorough search, but when the boy began calling repeatedly, they reached the conclusion that it was all a hoax.

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels