Ex army man makes terror attack hoax call to Karnataka police, arrested

A caller claiming to be a lorry driver informed that major cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra and Puducherry would be hit by terror attacks.

After the hoax call, coastal states like Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, and Pondicherry were put on high alert.

NEW DELHI: Eight states were put on alert late after Karnataka police received a hoax call of about a possible terror attack. The tip-off was based on a hoax phone called by a man claiming to be a lorry driver who was later arrested by Bengaluru rural police for giving false information. 65- year old driver Swamy Sundar Murthy is said to be an ex-army man was under the influence of alcohol. On Friday, the man had informed about the gathering of a group of terrorists in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram. He called up Bangalore city police control and said that a group of 19 terrorists will carry out terrorist attacks in train in the above-given states. In the letter by the Karnataka police, it states “He also claimed that there are 19 terrorists present at Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu,”. After the hoax call, coastal states like Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, and Pondicherry were put on high alert due to a possible terror attack input received by Karnataka police. Karnataka police had received a call from a lorry driver on Friday at around 5:30 pm. Earlier in Tamil Nadu, a bomb threat was received on Friday to the Pamban sea bridge, which connects this holy island to the mainland, prompting police to carry out extensive searches. The threat comes at a time when the serial bomb blasts in Sri Lanka, which left 253 people dead, including 11 Indians and injured 500 others. The Coast Guard, Coastal Marine Police and the local police have been asked to be vigilant round-the-clock as there was a possibility of some terrorists involved in Sri Lanka's worst terror attack entering India through the sea route. India's National Investigation Agency during its probe into an ISIS-inspired module planning to kill prominent leaders in south India had stumbled upon videos of Hashim, which was indicative of a terror attack on the Indian High Commission in Colombo. The videos showed Hashim asking youths from Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala to establish an Islamic rule in the region. After a further investigation which included cyber trailing of some of the accounts associated with the ISIS, India's central security agencies had shared input with their Lankan counterparts about the churches being the likely target of the ISIS module.