The Ahmedabad Crime Branch and Cybercrime Unit have arrested the prime suspect behind a spate of hoax bomb threats that targeted schools and courts across Gujarat last month, police said on Tuesday.
The accused, identified by police as Sourav Biswas, was arrested in West Bengal during a joint operation and was taken to Ahmedabad. A statement issued by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch said that he was produced before the city court on Tuesday and was remanded in custody.
She added, “This operation represents a major achievement in maintaining public safety and digital security.”
The arrest comes after a chaotic period in February when coordinated threatening emails led to mass evacuations. On February 17, at least six district and sessions courts in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Rajkot, Valsad and Mehsana were vacated after receiving bomb threat emails. Bomb disposal teams and police dog units searched the building but did not find anything suspicious.
Just a day earlier, 39 schools – 19 in Vadodara and the rest in Ahmedabad – were targeted, forcing thousands of students onto the streets. No explosives were found in any case.
Investigation teams are interrogating the suspect to uncover the motive, potential accomplices, and the technical methods used to bypass security protocols. The police statement said Biswas used sophisticated methods, including a VPN (virtual private network), to hide his identity.
She added that the operation was conducted under the supervision of Ahmedabad Police Commissioner G S Malik and the leadership of Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Sharad Singhal.
