New Delhi, Oct 30 A 23-year-old UPSC aspirant was arrested in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly orchestrating a prank call to his former roommate in Mukherjee Nagar here, falsely claiming that a Pakistan-based terror organisation was planning blasts in the national capital, police said on Friday.
Police identified the accused as Suraj Verma, originally from Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh.
“He used a landline phone installed at a relative’s house in Kanpur and modulated his voice to make the call appear as if it was coming from someone associated with a cross-border terror organisation,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northwest) Akansha Yadav said.
She claimed police cracked the case within 48 hours through technical surveillance and coordination with the Uttar Pradesh Police.
According to police, officials received a PCR call at the Mukherjee Nagar police station on the night of October 27 after a resident of Indra Vikas Colony reported receiving a threatening phone call. The complainant, Suman Kumar, a native of Bihar’s Madhepura, was preparing for the civil services examination and was staying in the locality with his roommate Rohit Kumar, the statement said.
The DCP said during the call, the caller allegedly began with a religious greeting and claimed that an organisation operating from Lahore had been monitoring the two students and selected them to execute bomb blasts in Delhi.
“When Suman attempted to deter the caller by claiming that his father was a Cabinet minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, the caller made derogatory political remarks before disconnecting. Taking the threat seriously, the students immediately alerted police through the emergency helpline,” the officer said.
Following an investigation, police registered an FIR at Mukherjee Nagar police station on October 29. Given the sensitive nature of the threat, senior officers constituted a dedicated team to trace the caller.
The officer said police analysed telecommunication records and other digital data, which helped them trace the landline number the accused used to call from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. A police team travelled to Kanpur and, with the help of local police, raided the identified location, leading to Verma’s arrest.
During interrogation, police learned that the accused earlier lived in the same accommodation in Indra Vikas Colony as the complainant and his roommate. The investigation revealed that Verma allegedly knew the complainant and had made the call specifically to play a prank on his former roommate.
“To conceal his identity and create an impression of a serious cross-border security threat, he used a landline belonging to a relative and deliberately altered his voice while making the call. The investigation established that the purported links with Lahore and the threat of bomb blasts were fabricated, and the call was a hoax,” she said, adding that further investigation is underway.
(PTI News)
