Two days after three people were arrested from Gujarat’s Vadodara in connection with a ‘prank’ email bomb threat received by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has conducted searches at the office of the Memon community in Mandvi area of the city. According to senior officials, the ATS was looking for "two more persons, whose names had cropped up during the questioning of the three arrested accused". The team on Thursday night raided some optic stores in the area from where the accused allegedly used internet connections to send the email, threatening to plant 11 bombs in Mumbai city, if Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das did not tender their resignations. The police have confiscated the CCTV records as well as the internet router from which the email was sent, sources said. The emails were sent from an email id under the name Khilafat India on Tuesday. The Mumbai Crime Branch on Tuesday nabbed three accused from Tandalja, Panigate and Padra areas on Tuesday. One of the accused - Mohammad Arsheel Topala, 27, - has completed his BBA and works in the share market. Topala’s mobile was allegedly used to create the e-mail ID from which the threat mail was sent. The other arrested are Topala’s brother-in-law Waseem Memon, 35, who owns a paan beedi shop, and his friend Adil Malik, 23, who owns an egg shop in Padra. An officer said that Malik had provided a SIM card using fake documents to Memon, who then handed it over to Topala. A case was filed at Ambedkar Marg police station in Mumbai. A senior official of the Vadodara city police confirmed that the Mumbai ATS will continue its investigation in different areas of the city on Friday. In the email the accused allegedly threatened to blow up the RBI, along with New Central Office building, HDFC bank - all in South Mumbai and ICICI bank in Bandra-Kurla Complex. Vadodara police who were extending "extending logistical support” to the Mumbai squad said that it was "unaware of the details of the investigation". Sources said that the Mumbai ATS has checked the CCTV footage as well as the software details of the internet router of an optical shop in Mandvi area through which the email was sent.
