Behind hoax bomb call to 5-star hotel, promise of a chocolate – broken

Police said the call was received on the landline number of The Leela Ambience Hotel and Residences in Gurgaon.

A 24-year-old man allegedly made a hoax bomb threat call to a five-star hotel near the Delhi-Gurgaon border on Tuesday morning, with police saying the caller is seeing a counsellor for autism and was upset the counsellor did not give him a chocolate as promised.

Police said the call was received on the landline number of The Leela Ambience Hotel and Residences in Gurgaon. The caller then switched off the phone.Kaushik said, “It was a short call. Safety crew at the lodging informed the police control room, following which senior cops, including DCP East Virender Vij, ACP DLF Vikas Kaushik and SHOs from neighboring police headquarters arrived at the spot and a hunt activity was sent off.

The caller said that a bomb has been planted at the hotel. After receiving the information, the bomb detection and disposal squad and a dog squad, along with ambulance and fire tenders, were immediately dispatched and a search operation was launched. The area was cordoned off and as per protocol, people were evacuated from the hotel. A specialized group looked through the premises, yet no dubious item was found. The whole situation endured north of an hour and a half. After the lodging was pronounced safe, individuals were allowed into the inn.

Police said that during the probe, the number from which the call was made was traced to the man. “Our probe found that he is a special needs (person) and is undergoing treatment. We have verified this from counsellors and doctors. His teacher/counsellor had promised to give him a chocolate yesterday but when the counsellor did not, he got angry and expressed this by making a hoax call,” said ACP Kaushik.

Sources said he likewise settled on telephone decisions to two other unmistakable areas in Delhi, however detached the call prior to saying anything.

The ACP said an FIR was initially registered in the afternoon against unidentified accused under IPC Section 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) at DLF phase 3 police station. The caller was later identified, he said.

The FIR, stopped on the objection of the lodging’s senior supervisor, expressed that the inn’s administrator got a bomb danger call at 11.06 am.

At least 700 people were evacuated from Gurugram’s Leela Hotel during a two-hour-long search operation on Tuesday, following a call which reported a bomb threat at 11.45am. The call was later found to be a hoax made by a 25-year-old autistic man.

The caller was tracked down soon after but police decided not to pursue any legal action against him. “The man is undergoing treatment for autism at a private hospital in Gurugram. We verified his medical documents and spoke to the doctors treating him.Since he didn’t know about the repercussions of his activity, we chose not to make any legitimate move against him,” said Vijender Vij, representative chief of police (DCP) (East).

According to police, the man asked his parents for chocolates while they were on their way to a hospital in Gurugram from Delhi. When his parents refused, the man got angry and decided to call the Leela Hotel, a five-star property in Gurugram’s Sector 24, warning them about a bomb on the premises. Vij informed that he settled on the decision from his cell phone without the information on his folks. “He has been visiting a confidential medical clinic in childcare since April this year for his treatments,” he said.

The caller disconnected the call after reporting the threat and switched off his mobile phone, police said. The call sent the hotel staff into a frenzy and they immediately alerted the police. “Soon after, senior officers and personnel from three police stations carried out a search operation,” said Vikas Kaushik, assistant commissioner of police (DLF).

There were over 700 guests and staffers in the hotel at that time, police said. Police went about evacuating each of them, as sniffer dogs and the bomb squad searched for explosives in the hotel.”All standard working strategies were continued in the clearing system and the lodging was fixed. We had fire tenders and ambulances on backup,” Kaushik added.

The search eventually yielded nothing. The police, however, used the phone number to track down the caller. “He was in a state of panic after he realised his mistake,” Vij said. The DCP added that the nearby mall was not evacuated.

Guests and visitors at the hotel found themselves in the grips of fear and panic. Vikram Rana, a Delhi resident, said that he was in the hotel to meet a client when the incident took place.”The client was remaining at the inn so we were unable to leave the premises and hung tight there for right around three hours until police declared that everything was taken care of,” he said.

Sneha Singh, a guest at the hotel, described the situation as scary. “We reached Delhi on Sunday and were scheduled to catch a flight on Tuesday night for London. We ran outside without getting our stuff. My companions and family members needed to go from Delhi and remove us,” she said.