A 20-year-old engineering student has been arrested by a joint team of North-East CEN crime police and Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) police in connection with a tweet about bombing the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA).
The accused Vaibhav Ganesh, a resident of Kudlu Gate, is a third-year engineering student of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) in Allahabad.
At 10.15 pm on December 10, Ganesh tweeted: ‘i will bomb the blr airport j so they can rebuild one closer to the city’.
Roopa Mathew, terminal manager of KIA, had filed a complaint with the BIAL police, who registered a case under IPC Sections 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) and 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication). Anoop A Shetty, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast), had formed a special team to nab the accused.
With technical assistance, the police zeroed in on Ganesh on Tuesday and seized his mobile phone from which he had tweeted about the bombing.
During interrogation, Ganesh told the police that he came to Bengaluru from Allahabad by flight on the night of December 10. While he was going home, he felt that the airport is far from his house and the traffic movement was slow.
Meanwhile, his mother called him a few times to check how long he would take to reach home. Angered, Ganesh tweeted about the bombing. His parents are working in IT companies in the city.
He has been served a notice to appear before the investigating officer again.