'There will be a blast at Salman Khan's Galaxy Apartments': Hoax mail puts Mumbai Police on high alert

A hoax mail sent by a 16-year-old boy from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh about a bomb threat at Salman Khan's Galaxy Apartments in Bandra had put the Mumbai Police on high alert.

"Bandra me Galaxy, Salman Khan ke ghar par agle 2 ghante me blast hoga, rok sakte ho to rok lo (There will be a blast at Galaxy, Salman Khan's house in the next two hours. Try to stop it if you can)," read the email which was sent by the teenager to the Mumbai Police on December 4.

According to Hindustan Times, "Additional commissioner of police Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma; deputy commissioner of police (zone 9) Paramjit Singh Dahiya; senior inspector (PI), Bandra police station Vijayalaxmi Hiremath, along with the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) rushed to Galaxy Apartments to find the explosive."

The BDDS team evacuated the Khan family members including Salim Khan, wife Salma Khan and Arpita Khan Sharma from the Galaxy Apartments to a safe zone and searched the apartment for nearly four hours. Salman Khan was not at home when the team arrived.

"We checked every nook and corner of his apartment, and the building, which took us around three to four hours. Only after that, the family was shifted back to their apartment," an officer from Bandra police station told the leading daily.

Senior PI Hiremath further added, "Once we discovered the threat was a hoax, we tracked the culprit through technical intelligence and found that it was a minor boy from Ghaziabad. Accordingly, a team was dispatched to Ghaziabad."

The teenager was hiding in Tis Hazari Court to avoid being caught by the police. However, his elder brother, who is an advocate, convinced the boy to come home after the police team told him about the hoax email sent by the 16-year-old who was preparing for his CLAT (Common Law Admission Test).

Once the boy returned home, he was served a notice by the police team to summon before the Bandra police. During the investigation it was also learnt that the boy had sent a threatening mail to Kabir Nagar police station in Ghaziabad in January.

"The teenager came to the police station and we produced him before the juvenile court. We filed a final report [charge sheet] against him [for a non-cognizable offence] after which the court allowed him to go," said Hiremath.