Why an unemployed law school dropout from Mysuru sent hoax bomb threats to Delhi courts

“It is suspected that he wanted to stall the court proceedings. He has sent several emails to the Delhi High Court and other district courts of the national capital in the last few months. He also sent emails to the courts out of the country including the courts in Pakistan’s Sindh and Balochistan,” the source said.

Shrinivas lives with his mother, who is a retired government school teacher, according to the police. His mobile phones and other gadgets, including his laptop, have also been seized.

An officer said it is suspected that he sent the email to schools in the Capital as well but that is being verified. There are around 1,500 emails he has sent to various institutions but the majority of them are to courts in several parts of the country, the officer added.

Sources said the accused is being brought to Delhi after being produced in a local court in Karnataka.

A senior police officer, while confirming the development to The Indian Express, said that Shrinivas will be produced before a Delhi court once the team reaches the city.

The police will seek his custody for further questioning to ascertain the exact number of threats sent and the motive behind targeting these institutions.

The officer said that this case may lead to solving multiple threat cases involving various institutions, where the sender used a VPN (virtual private network) while sending the emails. A VPN is an encrypted connection over the internet that helps the sender hide their identity.

Last September, the Delhi High Court received bomb threat emails that were later declared a hoax. One of the messages claimed that three bombs had been planted on the premises and that the building should be vacated by 2 pm. The emails also claimed that the accused had established links with the ISI in Coimbatore and threatened to recreate the 1998 blasts.

Besides, Delhi has witnessed more than 50 similar incidents targeting over 500 schools and other government institutions in the past two years.

With this arrest, the Delhi Police expects to make progress in the case related to 100 bomb threat emails sent to the High Court, district courts, and schools in the national capital.

Two-week long trail

It was a two-week-long operation by the Delhi Police team from the New Delhi district’s Cyber Police unit, spanning from Bengaluru to Mysuru in Karnataka, that led to the arrest of Shrinivas.

A police source said that Shrinivas had been sending emails for several months. Some of these emails were sent using a VPN, while others were sent without it. The emails that were sent without a VPN were successfully tracked Two weeks ago, the police team traced the mobile number allegedly used to send the emails to Karnataka. The team was immediately dispatched to Bengaluru.

“Even as the mobile number is no longer in use, with the help of technical surveillance and local police, the team tracked down Shrinivas’s original address in Mysuru,” the source said.