Combating menace of hoax calls

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

``Is there any hoax bomb call?'' the Police Control Room of Delhi police receives a query from a city scribe, who probably would have asked ``Is there any spot?'' a few months ago. The enquiry is a reflection on the changing scenario in which the number of bogus calls have risen alarmingly. And in the event of most of these calls being made from public call offices effecting arrests of the mischief-mongers has been proving tough for the harassed police force.

While analysts blame the recent trend on the psychological effect of the frequency and nature of sensational happenings around the country and even abroad -- namely the September 11 bombing, the crackdown on SIMI and even the somewhat distant Red Fort intrusion -- some people have been making use of bogus calls for personal gains such as delaying flights for the sake of just catching them!

The problem with such calls, police officials insist, is that they cannot be ignored. For a hoax is not so till proved likewise. The Joint Commissioner of Police (Operations), Mr. S.K. Choudhury, says the calls can not be discounted as fake right in the beginning as the police have to remain prepared for any eventuality.

As such the calls are taken seriously and this leads to wastage of both time and manpower. In the past fortnight, the police have received about 15 such calls, which have led to evacuation of important buildings and caused inconvenience to thousands of people.

A prank for someone, one such call even proved fatal for a train passenger, Ashok Mulchandani, a resident of Kailash Hills in South Delhi, on September 25. Waiting on the railway tracks at Jaganpatti between Mathura and Bharatpur while the August Kranti Express was being searched for explosives following a bomb call, that turned out to be hoax, the man succumbed to a heart attack due to lack of medical aid.

Incidentally, the same day the Rajdhani Express from Mumbai was also stopped and searched following a `warning'. Similarly, there were two back-to-back calls such calls on September 27 at New Delhi railway station about a bomb being placed on platform No. 1 and another on Shramjeevi Express. Both led frenetic searches for explosives, which were just not there.

Some persons have also been spreading scare by naming important buildings such as South Block, Red Fort and even cinema halls in their calls for spreading panic. If it was Sheila cinema on August 15, then it was Regal's turn on September 20 to be evacuated and searched for the elusive explosive. For record's sake, that day there were five bogus calls.

The police went into top gear as they received calls about bombs being placed at Delhi High Court and Tis Hazari courts. Around 200 rooms of Tis Hazari courts were evacuated and the High Court was throughly searched as proceedings were disrupted in both places.

During the day the police also received calls about bombs being placed at New Delhi railway station, Capital Court building in South Delhi and Regal building: all of which led to massive search operations.

The Joint Commissioner (Northern Range), Mr Suresh Roy, says following these calls, the Delhi police is trying hard to devise ways of dealing with the menace and is even studying the calling pattern. ``A list of all the PCOs is being prepared for sensitising their owners on the need to keep an eye on the callers.''

But while numerous calls are received by the Police Control Room -- which like the airport and several other important government offices has been equipped with Caller Identification Units -- very few are traced to the original callers as most of these are made from PCOs whose operators remain in the dark about the identification of the callers.

Only in some cases have people been arrested on the charge of causing public nuisance by spreading fear. In one such case a 72- year-old man was caught from a Darya Ganj hotel for making a fake call to the airport claiming that a bomb had been planted in the Sahara Airlines flight. The accused, Abedali Rangwala, made the call as he was late for the flight. He was arrested from Hotel Broadway on Asaf Ali Road as the authorities were able to trace the number from which he called.

Likewise, another person, Rajkumar, a native of Katihar district of Bihar, was caught for making a call which falsely claimed that a bomb had been planted at South Block. The accused, who called the Prime Minister's Residence from Chandigarh, was nabbed after the call was traced to a PCO in Chandigarh. The operator, Naveen, led the police to Rajkumar, who was later found to be a proclaimed offender in a murder case and wanted in cases of attempt-to-murder, Arms Act and hurt cases.

This call was, incidentally, traced as it was an outstation one. The Chief General Manager of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Mr K.S. Khan, says while tracing STD calls and those made through mobile phones is easy, finding a bogus caller through a PCO is a difficult task.

``Apart from one switch with about 10,000 lines, the entire Delhi has the calling line identification facility now. But while the police, which has been provided this facility, can locate mischief-makers if calls are made from homes, tracking wrong- doers who call from PCOs is difficult primarily because the operators are unable to keep track of the calls as there are no display panels in PCOs for local calls,'' he said.

Also, the official says, callers at times use unmanned coin booths for such clandestine operations and this makes the task of their identification that much difficult. ``Providing coin booths is also a necessity since people need to call at all hours and manned booths are not feasible at all places.''

Of the view that there is a need to check misuse of calling facilities, Mr Khan insists that efforts are being made to find ways and means of checking the nuisance of bogus calls.

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