All the intelligence agencies and anti-terror establishments swung into action after being alerted about the threat call, including the Maharashtra ATS led by additional director general Vivek Phansalkar. With the help of technical evidence, officials from the Juhu unit of the ATS tracked down the unidentified accused in Jogeshwari area close to where he lives. The accused has been identified as Dev Prabhakar Mishra.
The accused made the call on Friday using a cellphone. ATS officials worked all night to trace him and on Saturday morning traced his location and nabbed him. Mishra’s custody has been taken to see if he is linked to any terror outfit. He has been arrested under Section 182 (false information), 505 (2) (statements conducing to public mischief) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the IPC amongst other charges.
He was produced before a magistrate’s court and remanded to police custody for further probe. The ATS wants to check Mishra’s entire background to find out if he indeed had any evil intentions.
On arrest, the 22-year-old started claiming that he was “mentally sick” and did the act out of his illness. But an ATS source said, “The man seems to be bluffing that he is sick. He kept a tab on the Prime Minister’s visits. Also, he went on the Internet and after searches found out numbers to the two offices of high-ranking government servants in Varanasi and called them up. We will interrogate him and find out if he is actually mentally sick or just bluffing to escape punishment.”
