Hyderabad engineer held for hoax bomb call to Google office in BKC Mumbai

Mumbai: An engineer from Hyderabad was arrested on Monday for allegedly making a hoax call to the Google India office, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), claiming that a bomb had been planted in their Pune office. The accused – identified as Shivanand Venkat Babu – is a resident of Chand Nagar, Hyderabad.

As per the police, Babu, 42, called up Google’s BKC office late on Sunday night and said that a bomb had been placed in the tech giant’s Pune office.

“The information was relayed to the police station and we obtained the mobile number from which the call was made. Using its registration details and cellular location mapping, we ascertained that the caller was in Chand Nagar. Accordingly, a team was dispatched to Hyderabad on Sunday night itself,” said a police officer with the BKC



police.

Working in collaboration with the local police, the team picked up Babu for inquiries in the early hours of Monday morning. During his preliminary questioning, Babu claimed that he was calling his brother and ended up calling Google’s Mumbai office by mistake. However, he was unable to offer a satisfactory explanation as to why he spoke about bombs being planted at Google’s office in Pune while supposedly talking to his brother, and was placed under arrest.

“The process of taking over his custody from the local police is still underway and we shall know more about his intentions once we get his custody and interrogate him. We have booked him for making statements containing rumours or alarming news and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code,” the officer added.