A 42-year-old man from Kuniyamuthur in Coimbatore was arrested on Sunday, December 18, for making a fake bomb threat call to the police. The man, who was identified as Peer Mohammed, called the police and claimed that he was going to plant a bomb in a bar connected to a state-run TASMAC liquor store in Coimbatore. After the police searched the bar and discovered that the call was a hoax, he was arrested. This was the fifth time that Peer Mohammed has been arrested for making a hoax bomb threat, according to The Times of India.
Peer Mohammed called the police control room and said that a bomb would be placed inside the bar at a TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited) liquor outlet at Sundarapuram, police told The Hindu. On receiving the call, the Podanur police visited the bar and conducted a search. However, they did not find anything suspicious. The phone call was then traced to Peer Mohammed, a resident of Senthil Nagar in Sugunapuram near Kuniyamuthur, and he was arrested. A case has been registered under sections 506(i) (threats of criminal intimidation) and 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Peer Mohammed was produced before a magistrate and was remanded to judicial custody.
Police reportedly found that Peer Mohammed made the hoax call after an argument with the staff members at the bar. According to The Hindu, police said that Peer Mohammed had been arrested in January this year for making a similar hoax call saying that bombs had been placed in Kuniyamuthur and Periyakulam. In July last year, he was reportedly arrested for falsely reporting that a bomb would go off at the Marina Beach in Chennai. He had also been arrested in 2020 and 2018 for making similar hoax calls, according to the police.