Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) arrested two men on Wednesday, for threatening to bomb Ayodhya temple, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Amitabh Yash, as reported by Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).
Initially, the investigation revealed that Tahar Singh and Omprakash Mishra had sent a threatening message through email using fake IDs with Muslim names Alam Ansari (alamansarikhan608@gmail.com) and Zubair Khan (‘zubairkhanisi199@gmail.com).
The Police statement said Singh had created the accounts, and the threat messages were sent by Mishra as per the technical analysis. Both are residents of the Gonda district and work in a paramedical institute.
“While Singh worked as a social media handler, Mishra was deployed as a personal secretary. Mishra was also doing a two-year diploma course from the same college,” the police said.
The duo were arrested from Gomti Nagar of Lucknow. STF said that on December 27th, they had received the information from the DGP headquarters that “Zubair Khan, belonging to the ISI” had issued threats to harm Adityanath & STF Additional Director General (ADG) Amitabh Yash and blow up Ayodhya temple, via email.
In the statement STF said that a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) using the handle ‘@iDevendraOffice’, had been posted about it on 20th November, following which, Inspector Sahendra Kumar, Operation Commander had filed an FIR at the Sushant Golf City police station and another case had been lodged at Alambagh police station, Lucknow. An investigation was carried out by the STF that arrested the two culprits.
During the questioning it was found that both were following the instructions from one Devendra Tewari, who was also the one behind the X post, who claimed it would help him “get highlighted on social media, his security would be increased and would make big political gains”.
“Devendra Tewari, who has several cases against him in Manak Nagar, Ashiyana, Banthra, Gautam Palli, and Alambagh police stations in Lucknow, had told the arrested men to post threats on social media. Tewari runs a college in the Alambagh area named Indian Institute Paramedical Sciences, and he has an office there,” said the statement.
According to the statement, the threat messages were sent on November 19 and December 27, and Devendra Tewari shared the messages from his Twitter (X) account. After the emails were sent, the two mobile phones were burnt and destroyed by Tewari. The WiFi used for sending the emails was traced back to Tewari’s office.
STF officials said that Tewari is absconding, adding, “We will nab him soon. He was behind this whole episode. In the past, he has claimed threats to his life and was given a gunner for his security.”
The accused have been charged with sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offense), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), and 506 (criminal intimidation), 507 (Criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and those under the Information Technology Act. STF is further investigating the matter.
