Nagpur: A hotel near the bustling Ganeshpeth inter-district bus stand received an email threatening to explode five bombs in and around it, at around 9.30am on Monday. The threat put the city police and intelligence agencies on high alert.
Police personnel, including a team of Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, and fire brigade officials rushed to the spot. The security personnel conducted thorough checks at the hotel and adjoining areas and found no suspicious object before declaring the threat as a hoax.
The hotel sees a high footfall given its proximity to the inter-district bus stop. As a precautionary measure, all occupants of the hotel were evacuated.
Sources said the sender identified himself as ‘Vlad Kener’ sent the threat email from an unidentified location to the hotel’s official mail ID which landed in its inbox at around 2.47am. The hotel staff spotted the email at around 7.30am, following which they alerted their owner, who in turn approached Ganeshpeth police station.
Ganeshpeth police station senior inspector Machhinder Pandit said he alerted the police control room and other agencies like Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS).
Sources said the cyber police station sent the email for verification to Google and also to identify its sender. While technical investigations are underway, an official said and added that inputs have been sent to various teams across India working on hoax mailers to trace their origins and identities.
Earlier, there have been similar reports of hoax calls at Nagpur airport and railway stations that disrupted air and railway schedules.
