Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara on Wednesday said that the police have written to Proton Mail, whose service was used to send ‘bomb threat’ emails to the Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and some senior police officers, and were awaiting their reply.
Parameshwara also said they would write to the Centre to ban Proton Mail, an end-to-end encrypted email service provider based in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland.
Responding to a query by DH, Parameshwara said, “We have written to them seeking details of the email sent to us using their service and to reveal the identity of the sender. We are yet to receive a response.”
The minister said that the contents of the email were taken seriously.
“We will inform the Centre to either ban or restrict Proton Mail,” he said.
Recent media reports claimed that the Centre was mulling over blocking Proton Mail after a request by Tamil Nadu police over hoax bomb threats to schools in Chennai.
“If the Centre had restricted Proton Mail in India, we wouldn’t have received the email. Since we have received the email, it is clear that they haven’t taken action,” Parameshwara said.
The email warning “large explosions” throughout Karnataka was received by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Home Minister G Parameshwara and some senior police officers on March 2 at 2.48 pm, a day after the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast at Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru that injured 10 people.
The email sent by Shahidkhan10786@protonmail.com also had a ransom demand of $2.5 million (an estimated Rs 20.72 crore). A case was registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station, which is supervised by the Central Crime Branch (CCB).
Published 06 March 2024, 20:14 IST