Cracking a mystery: Threat mails in Mumbai, Delhi, clues in Chennai

They also suspect that the threat mail last month that led to the Delhi High Court being evacuated briefly originated from the same source.

Investigators have traced several “commonalities” in all these mails, such as conspiracy theories about South Indian politicians, actors and bureaucrats, references to the explosive “RDX”, and the use of Outlook. But they have not been able to confirm the identity of the sender or determine whether a group was involved.
Chennai police believe the source of the mails they are tracking is a Tamil expatriate settled abroad, using VPNs and encrypted email services registered overseas, making it nearly impossible to trace, sources said.

Meanwhile, Central agencies, such as the Intelligence Bureau and National Investigation Agency, are also tracking the probe since the “possibility of threats being sent from an organisation or an enemy country cannot be ruled out”, sources said.

“So far, we have found around nine commonalities in all these mails due to which we suspect the same person or group is involved,” a Mumbai police officer said.

“The mails are always sent from Outlook IDs. In all these cases, the dark web was used to create mail IDs and Virtual Private Network (VPN) to send the emails. Most of the mails mention RDX or IED devices. The mails also contain conspiracy theories regarding prominent persons such as TN Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, YouTuber Savukku Shankar, IPS Jaffar Sait and Afzal Guru,” the officer said.

Udayanidhi is also the son of Chief Minister Stalin, Shankar faces several cases over his controversial videos targeting politicians and officials, Sait faced charges in a case of money laundering that were later quashed by the courts and Guru was executed in 2013 for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack.

The Mumbai officer said a team was sent to Chennai to go through the emails involved in the cases there and coordinate with local officers. “We went through each and every line of the threats received there. We are also trying to sift through mails sent to Mumbai as well with a fresh eye to find if there is some clue,” the officer said.

“The technology used includes auto-deletion of messages once they have been sent. A new mail ID is created using the dark web every time. So far, there has been no slip-up by the accused. What we are trying to understand is the motive because it is not cyber fraud where there is monetary gain. As of now, the motive seems to be creating chaos without being traced,” the officer said.

An officer from Chennai police said there is a steady increase in the number of such emails over the past eight months. “What used to be once a week is one a day now. There were about 30 in the past month alone. The pattern is designed to mirror whatever is dominating Tamil Nadu’s political discourse that week. The mails target almost every known person in Tamil social media,” the officer said.

In recent weeks, the targets in Chennai included the Chief Minister’s residence, Raj Bhavan, BJP’s state headquarters, Vijay’s seaside home and media houses. One set of threats claimed explosives were planted at the homes of magazine editor Nakkeeran Gopal, Shankar and other Tamil media personalities. “Each time, bomb squads swept in with sniffer dogs, cordoning off roads, evacuating offices and combing buildings — only to find nothing,” the officer said.

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