Mumbai: Mumbai’s Reserve Bank of India (RBI) customer care centre was the target of a threat call on Saturday morning, officials said on Sunday. The caller introduced himself as the “CEO” of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and made a strange request, claiming an electric car had broken down and asking for the back road to be blocked.
The call, received around 10 am, prompted immediate action. RBI officials alerted the Mumbai Police, who conducted a thorough search of the area. Despite the concerns raised by the call, authorities said that no suspicious activity or items were found. An investigation is now underway to identify the individual behind the threat.
The incident comes amid a spate of hoax calls across the country, which have targeted institutions such as airports, schools and public spaces.
Mumbai airport bomb threat
In a similar case last week, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport received a bomb threat. The call, made to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) control room, alleged that a person named Mohammad was travelling with explosives on a flight from Mumbai to Azerbaijan. Security agencies conducted an investigation, but no credible threat was found.
The central government has issued a stern warning to social media platforms, urging them to take swift action against the spread of bomb hoax misinformation or risk losing the exemptions they currently enjoy in India.
IT ministry flags hoaxes as economic, public threats
The Ministry of Information Technology said in an advisory that these hoaxes pose a dual threat: they create panic among citizens and endanger the nation’s economic security. The ministry highlighted the urgency of curbing such false alarms, which have increasingly strained public resources and disrupted daily life.
In one notable incident last month, a bomb hoax in Chhattisgarh was exposed as a personal vendetta. A school dropout was found to have orchestrated the hoax to falsely implicate his friend. Authorities continue to focus on the origins of such misinformation, underscoring the role of online platforms in ensuring the dissemination of verified information to prevent widespread chaos.
