Try to figure out if accused in Inorbit mall case is linked to any militant outfit
The frequent bomb hoax calls in the city have the police worried. They suspect terror outfits are testing their alertness by employing what they term is the “boy-who-cried-wolf” technique.
The police are now trying to find out if the person arrested for the bomb hoax at Inorbit Mall recently was a part of this suspected ploy.
The fact that Abdul Latif Shaikh, 23, stole a cell phone and used its SIM card to make the hoax call has got the police thinking.
“Shaikh has told us that he made the call just for fun and that he wanted to check the police’s efficiency in the wake of the Jaipur serial blasts,” deputy commissioner of police Shivaji Bodke said. “He could have made the call from a public phone booth. Why did he have to steal a phone to make the call?,” he said.
“We are trying to find out if he is linked to any terror outfits. We are looking into his past records, his family history and other aspects of his life,” Bodke said.
Shaikh, 23, a class 12 pass out, was working as a salesman in a shoe showroom in the mall. The cellphone he stole belonged to an air-hostess, who had lodged a complaint with the Malad police after she lost the phone. Shaikh destroyed the cellphone and used its SIM card to make the hoax call. The police are also trying to find out if Shaikh was behind the three bomb hoax calls received by call centres in Malad early this year. An ICICI call centre received a hoax call twice. The third call was made to Daksh. No arrests were made in these cases.
Meanwhile, the city police have issued strict orders to all police stations to take such calls seriously. “We do not take such calls lightly,” KL Prasad, joint commissioner of police, law and order, said.
s_jyoti@dnaindia.net
