A 60-year-old man has been arrested for making two hoax calls, threatening to blow up the New Delhi railway station and the IGI airport.

The accused, Mohrram Ali, had threatened that he would trigger the ‘bombs’ if the police did not release JNU students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. Investigations revealed that Mohrram had tried to frame one of his relatives in the case.

Police said that on Friday morning they received a call threatening to blow up the airport. A police team assigned to probe the identity of the caller was alarmed when they traced the location of the caller to the airport itself. Police said that the top brass was informed after which a high level meeting was held.

“We activated our security drills swiftly. The bomb detection team also conducted checks and a meeting of the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee was held. The caller had switched off his phone. After all the standard checks, the call was declared as a hoax and a case was registered at the IGI police station,” said DCP (Airport) DK Gupta.

During investigation police found that a call had been made from the same number threatening to blow the New Delhi railway station two hours before the airport threat call.

DCP Gupta said that the police team traced the owner of the SIM card to one Mujahid Ali who denied making the calls. Police then contacted the shopkeeper from whom the SIM card had been purchased. The shopkeeper told police that Mohrram had purchased the SIM in Ali’s name after claiming that Ali was unwell.

Mohraam was then arrested. During interrogation, Mohrram confessed that his daughter had married Ali’s son and the couple had a strained relationship. “He believed that Ali was the reason for the problems in his daughter’s marriage. He had also had a scuffle with Ali because of which he had to serve time in prison. He, hence, wanted to frame Ali and made the two hoax calls,” DCP DK Gupta said.