Hours after two threat calls were made to the Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital at Girgaum on Wednesday, with the caller threatening to blow up the hospital and harm the family of billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, the Mumbai Police in a joint operation with Bihar police have detained a suspect allegedly involved in the case. The police have arrested the suspect and have seized his phone from which the calls were reportedly made to issue threats.
The arrested suspect has been identified as Rakesh Kumar Mishra (30), a resident of Darbhanga in Bihar.
"Acting swiftly in the incident of threat calls to the Ambani family, a team of Mumbai Police has detained a person from a block in Darbhanga, Bihar, at midnight with the help of Bihar Police," said the deputy commissioner of police (Zone II) Neelotpal.
"Mishra belongs to a business family, but he is not doing anything currently. Mishra was produced before the court on Thursday and has been remanded in police custody till October 10. We would be interrogating him thoroughly to ascertain why he made the calls. We have seized his phone and will also do extraction and analysis of his phone details," said a police officer.
According to the police, a call was received on the landline number of Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital at 12:57 pm on Wednesday from an unknown number. In this call, the caller had threatened Mukesh Ambani, and his family and also threatened to blow up Antilia. Another call was received at around 5 pm and in this call, the caller threatened to blow up the hospital.
A bomb disposal squad and the dog squad carried out searches at the hospital and the Ambani residence and security was beefed up at both places. Three teams were formed to investigate the case.
Dr Tarang Gianchandani, CEO, of HN Reliance Hospital, said, “We received two threat calls from the same person at 1 pm and 5 pm. Earlier he threatened our Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, and his family and threatened to blow up Antilia. However, in another call, he threatened to blow up the hospital along with Mr Ambani's residence.”
On Aug 15, from around 10:30am till 12:04pm, nine threat calls were received on the landline number of the Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital. The caller issued threats to Mr Ambani. A case of criminal intimidation was registered at the time under section 506(2) of the Indian Penal Code. A 56-year-old Borivali resident was later arrested in the case.
