An email was sent to the Reserve Bank of India, threatening to detonate explosives at the bank’s headquarters located in Mumbai. The menacing email was dispatched to the official email ID of RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra in the Russian language on December 12, stating “will blow you up.”
After obtaining the information regarding the threatening email, the Mumbai Police registered a case against the sender under applicable sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and initiated an investigation.
Discussing the threat email, a senior officer from the Mumbai Police stated, “An threatening email was received via the official website of the Reserve Bank of India. The message was in Russian and threatened to detonate the bank. A complaint has been filed against an unidentified suspect at Mata Ramabai Marg (MRA Marg) police station. An inquiry into the matter is currently in progress.”
Sources indicate that police are looking into whether a VPN was utilized to send the email and are tracking the IP address of the person who sent it.
The threatening email arrived just days after Sanjay Malhotra assumed his role as the 26th Governor of the Reserve Bank, succeeding Shaktikanta Das, who stepped down after six years.
Malhotra, an IAS officer from the Rajasthan cadre, was chosen by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier last month, the customer service center of RBI in Mumbai received a threat call from a person claiming to be the “CEO” of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The individual, who referred to himself as the “CEO of Lashkar-e-Taiba,” contacted the RBI and requested that officials shut down the back road, asserting that an electric vehicle had malfunctioned.
The issue was promptly brought to the attention of the Mumbai Police, who carried out a search. Nevertheless, nothing unusual was discovered.
