This story is from November 11, 2019

Bengaluru: MCA graduate's bomb-threat letters set off alarm

A 25-year-old MCA graduate, who spread panic in tony HSR Layout Sector 1 by dropping letters at the doorsteps of residents saying their houses would bombed if they did not pay him a ransom of Rs 5 lakh, recently landed in police net.
Bengaluru: MCA graduate's bomb-threat letters set off alarm
Devendra Kumar
BENGALURU: A 25-year-old MCA graduate, who spread panic in tony HSR Layout Sector 1 by dropping letters at the doorsteps of residents saying their houses would bombed if they did not pay him a ransom of Rs 5 lakh, recently landed in police net.
HSR Layout police said Devendra Kumar, a resident of Agara and from Punganur in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, was arrested while he was dropping the third threat letter in front of a house in Sector 1 on November 3.
He had placed the first letter in front of engineer and contractor V Kiran’s house on November 1 and the second letter near another residence the next day.
Police said a few years ago, Kumar worked with a BPO in the city for a monthly salary of Rs 9,000. He, however, wasn’t happy with his income and went back to his hometown. In 2018, he returned to Bengaluru and started working as a cab driver. But he also wanted to make a quick buck. An avid watcher of crime series on Netflix, YouTube and other platforms, Kumar was apparently “inspired by one of the documentaries” he saw and resorted to bomb threats. Police, however, couldn’t immediately confirm which documentary triggered the idea.
Kiran said that around 6pm on November 1, the security guard at his house found four copies of a letter inside the compound. The letter was from a man who identified himself as Rehman.
In the letter, Rehman demanded a ransom of Rs 5 lakh from Kiran. He said that if Kiran failed to pay, he would bomb his house.
Kiran immediately alerted police, who arrived with sniffer dogs and searched his premises. Having ascertained that there was no bomb, police began a probe. The next day they found another resident in the locality too received a similar letter.
While panic spread, HSR Layout police began vetting CCTV footage from the area and questioned as many as 50 persons in a single day.

The letter sender had provided an email ID in his missive, asking the recipients to contact him on the same to work out details of ransom payment. Police got the recipients to send an email to the address provided, seeking to know where they should deliver the money. After an eight-hour wait, the suspect replied, saying the money should be delivered near a temple at HSR Layout. He, however, did not turn up as per the plan. However, by then police were on the trail of the mobile phone from which he had sent the emails.
An unsuspecting Kumar was dropping his threat letter in front of another house in the locality when he was picked up.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA