Mumbai:

A bomb threat was received on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s customer care number yesterday, during which the caller claimed to be the “CEO of Lashkar-e-Taiba”, sources said.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group had carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, one of the deadliest terror attacks in India.

The call came on the helpline number around 11 am on Saturday and he threatened to blow up the central bank with a bomb, they said. He said he was the “CEO” of the banned group and sang a song over the phone before issuing the threat, sources said.

Mumbai Police has filed a case and is trying to hunt down the caller.

The bomb threat comes amid a series of hoax calls to airlines that grounded hundreds of flights over the past two months, leading to a concern for aviators and security agencies.

An IndiGo flight from Nagpur to Kolkata made an emergency landing in Raipur on Thursday after a bomb threat that turned out to be fake – this was the latest such incident.

The central government has taken up the issue with great concern and warned social media platforms to act against the spread of such misinformation or lose exemptions that they enjoy in India.

The Information Technology Ministry had said in an advisory that such bomb hoaxes not only affect the citizens but also destabilise the country’s economic security.

One of the bomb hoaxes last month turned out to be a plot by a school dropout in Chhattisgarh to frame his friend.

New Delhi:

The spate of fake bomb threats issued to airlines poses a threat to public order, the Centre has told social media platforms while ordering them to act against the spread of such misinformation at the earliest.

It has also warned the social media companies that the exemption available to them for third-party content as intermediaries under the Information Technology Act will not apply if they don’t follow their due diligence obligations or aid in committing an unlawful act. 

In an advisory sent on Friday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said air travellers and security agencies have been affected because of the hoax bomb threats, which have disrupted the normal operations of airlines. 

“Such hoax bomb threats, while affecting a large number of citizens, also destabilise the economic security of the country. Further, the scale of spread of such hoax bomb threats has been observed to be dangerously unrestrained due to the availability of the option of ‘forwarding/re-sharing/ re-posting/ re-tweeting’ on the social media platforms. Such hoax bomb threats are mostly misinformation that is massively disrupting public order, operations of airlines and security of the airline travellers,” the ministry said in the advisory. 

The ministry pointed out that the platforms have an obligation to carry out due diligence under the Information Technology Act (IT Act), 2000, and the Information Technology Rules (IT Rules), 2021, to remove misinformation that affects public order and security. 

It asked the platforms to stop the posting and sharing of such “unlawful or false” information and warned that the exemption from liability for third-party information, data, or communication hosted by social media intermediaries will not apply “if such intermediaries do not follow the due diligence obligations as prescribed under the IT Act read with IT Rules, 2021 or abetted or aided, in the commission of the unlawful act”.

If the due diligence obligations were not followed, the ministry said, the platforms would be liable for action under the IT Act as well as the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which has replaced the Indian Penal Code. 

The ministry urged the companies to make efforts to prevent such threats from being disseminated on their platforms and remove such content or disable access to it. The government also reminded the companies that they are required to inform the concerned authorities if they perceive any act on their platforms that can threaten India’s security, economic security or unity. 

Palghar:

A 35-year-old man was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly called up the Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar police control room saying bombs had been planted at Dadar and Kalyan railway stations and explosions would be triggered, which turned out to be a hoax, an official said.

The phone call was received at around 5 AM, following which police swung into action. The call was traced to Nallasopara in Palghar district, which falls under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), as per a release issued by the police.

Within hours of receiving the call, police caught Vikas Shukla from Nallasopara, it said.

“He was arrested after it was confirmed that the bomb threat was a hoax call. A case has been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code,” police said.

Further investigation is underway.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)