Hyderabad: The cautionary letter issued by the Karnataka Director General of Police, on the possibility of terror strikes in South India, has gone viral on social media.
The caution was sounded after a former Army soldier turned lorry driver Sundar Murthy called up the police in Bengaluru and warned of imminent terror activities.
Murthy, in his 60s, called the police control room in Bengaluru on Friday night and said 19 terrorists were holed up in a town in Tamil Nadu and were set to bomb cities, trains and buses in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana state, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
After several hours, during which the police forces of the southern states were gearing up, it turned out that Murthy’s claims were a hoax.
Till the all-clear was sounded, alarmed netizens began sending cautionary messages to their family and friends. The letter was given additional weightage because it had the name and designation of the Karnataka police chief and the government stamp.
Asked about the letter, Telangana police officers said the Karnataka police took the threat very seriously too early.
“For the sake of the general sense of security of the people in the state, however, personnel have been deployed at the locations identified as sensitive, and checking on suspects has been tightened,” said a senior Telangana state official.
It was stated that when Murthy was questioned further for the source of his information, he went off-track
The Bengaluru police managed to trace Murthy to Avalahalli near Bengaluru. Interrogation revealed that he made the call in an inebriated state.
“He told us that he gets possessed by some divine souls who make prophecies in his vision and his call was based on one such vision,” said Bengaluru additional commissioner of police Alok Kumar.
“The fact is he is a drunkard,” said the official.
Murthy told police that he was an ex-serviceman, who is now driving a tipper-lorry. His two sons are serving in the army while he was staying with his third son at Avalahalli, he claiimed.
Reports from Andhra Pradesh spoke of police in the temple town of Tirumala going on the alert after receiving the caution from the Karnataka police.
