Karnataka - Bangalore   

Hoax calls burdening police

K.V. Subramanya

THE POLICE and the public have been put to hardship by the increasing number of hoax calls of bombs having been planted at public places and business centres.

Although all such calls have turned out to be hoaxes (as in the case of the one received on July 3 by the staff of the Intelligence Control Room that a bomb had been planted in the office of the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police on Nrupathunga Road), the police have never taken chances.

The police and the personnel of the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad spent nearly two hours searching for a bomb at the office of the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police. The work at the State Police Headquarters was affected.

Often, such calls have put the short-staffed and over-burdened police under tremendous pressure and hindered their routine work. Explaining the hardship they face, a senior police official says: "Mobilising the personnel of the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad and sniffer dogs takes time as they are based at different places. While the dog squad is stationed in the City Armed Reserve (South) office in Koramangala, the Bomb Detection Squad personnel are at the Police Commissioner's office on Infantry Road."

The police cannot ignore such calls for obvious reasons.

While mischief mongers are taking the police for a ride by making hoax calls, the police have not been able to identify the callers, who normally make calls from public call offices. There are different theories about the motives of callers, but the police dismiss these and say that those who make hoax calls are only "pranksters."

Some people feel that criminals make hoax calls to divert the attention of the police, commit a crime, and escape. But, a police official dismisses this theory: "Such things can happen only in rural areas where police stations have limited staff, and not in Bangalore where there are many policemen."

Earlier, the City Police Control Room used to receive many hoax calls. With the installation of the caller identification device there, pranksters are now targeting offices, banks, and schools.

Sometime ago, four schools in the city received anonymous calls on the same day that bombs had been planted on their premises.

The mischief-mongers have not spared even chief ministers and ministers. On July 25, 2000, the State Cabinet meeting was suspended for nearly 30 minutes after a call that a bomb had been planted in the Vidhana Soudha.

A few days before that, the Police Control Room received a call that explosives had been planted at the official residence of the then Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna.

A few months ago, the departure of a Jet Airways flight to Mumbai from Bangalore was delayed by hours following an anonymous call that a bomb had been planted in the aircraft.

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