Bomb hoax caller held; Police say he is not a 'terrorist'

Bangalore, September, 26: The police on Tuesday arrested a 21-year-old post-graduate student, who made the hoax bomb call to Forum Mall, Koramangala, in the city.

Mangesh Ahirwal, a resident of Gollarahalli near Electronics City and a native of Jhansi, is the arrested.

Immediately after arresting him police informed media that the youth was not a terrorist. “He was inspired by Bollywood film Mumbai Meri Jaan," said DCP (West) in-charge of South Division SN Siddramappa.

Cinegoers at the PVR Cinemas in Forum Mall, had strange guests amidst the show on Monday afternoon, as the police dog squad and bomb disposal squads scanned for explosives in the cinemas.

The shows were interrupted and the public sent out for the cops to sanitise the premises of explosives, if any. However, no explosives were found.

An unidentified person called up the city police control room around 3:20 pm on Monday and warned about explosives planted at the PVR Cinemas. The City police immediately rushed bomb disposal squad and the sniffer dog squad to check for any explosives.

The police disrupted the afternoon shows at the cinemas, sent out the viewers and conducted a thorough exercise to check for any explosives. After an hour-long exercise, the threat call was confirmed to be a hoax. The police also checked for explosives in the mall. Finally, they declared the mall safe and the activities returned to normalcy by the evening.

Tracing the phone call, the Adugodi police picked up Mangesh Ahirwal from his residence where he was staying along with two of his friends. The police, however, gave a clean chit to his roommates after questioning both of them about their possible involvement.

The Police said Mangesh Ahirwal, who is pursuing his postgraduate research course at the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a premier R and D organisations under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, was inspired by a Bollywood movie and had allegedly made the hoax call.

The accused, who claimed he was having a bad day, confessed that he was inspired by the Hindi flick Mumbai Meri Jaan, where actor Irrfan Khan makes similar hoax calls after he is insulted, police said.