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Why a ‘spurned lover’ sent five emails threatening to blow up a court in UP

From fake accounts to VPN-masked emails, the UP ATS reveals how a technical investigation cracked a sophisticated digital frame-up.

The accused, 28-year-old Vishal Ranjan, was arrested by the UP Police ATS. Express

3 min readFeb 23, 2026 07:41 PM IST First published on: Feb 23, 2026 at 08:15 AM IST

On February 17, panic broke out at the Jaunpur district court when five emails arrived, all threatening to blow up the premises as well as the Jaunpur Police Line gate.

While an extensive search later confirmed it was a hoax, police immediately launched a hunt for the senders — only to find a single person was behind it all.

Police said the accused, 28-year-old Vishal Ranjan, allegedly sent the emails just to settle a personal score with a woman he had been in a relationship with. The Uttar Pradesh Police’s Anti-Terrorist Squad arrested him.

How the case was cracked

According to police, the emails had been sent from multiple fake accounts created under different names. The emails also mentioned certain phone numbers, and demanded Rs 1 lakh from the Chief Minister be sent to these numbers. It further warned that if the money was not paid, the two premises would be blown up.

During the preliminary investigation, police also found that the threatening emails were sent using a paid VPN (Virtual Private Network) service — an encrypted connection over the Internet which helps the sender hide their identity — and Proton Mail accounts.

Since the emails were masked, the UP ATS, which took over the investigation, decided to focus on the mobile numbers mentioned in the email and look into their social media activity. Police then found that it was Vishal who was behind it all.

“A team reached his residence in Sidhari and arrested him,” a police officer said.

A twisted motive

Police said it emerged that Vishal’s motive was personal revenge. He was unwilling to let the woman he had been in a relationship with marry someone else, so he first created a fake ID in her fiancé’s name and allegedly posted objectionable content online.

Police said a community meeting was held between the families and Vishal was made to apologise.

But, police said, he didn’t stop there. Seeking further revenge, he combed social media for mobile numbers of the fiance’s friends who had attended the meeting. He even found a pamphlet for a local cricket tournament listing their numbers, said police.

Using these details, police said, Vishal allegedly created fake email IDs in the names of the youths and the fiancé, sending threatening emails to implicate them — hoped the police would arrest them and send them to jail.

Police said they had registered a case on charges of extortion and criminal intimidation and provisions of the Information Technology Act the same day the threat emails were sent at Line Bazaar police station in Jaunpur against an unidentified person. “Through technical investigation, we traced Vishal and arrested him after questioning. We gathered sufficient evidence against him before making the arrest,” a senior ATS official said.

Police said Vishal, a graduate, has been preparing for competitive examinations to land a government job and possessed considerable knowledge of cyber technology.

Five mobile phones and a laptop were recovered from his possession.

Police said the devices were examined, which revealed that the email IDs used to issue the threat were created using those phones. Police also found that nearly 50 email IDs and 20 Facebook accounts had been created under fake names.