A 26-year-old man from Haryana’s Ambala was arrested in Dehradun on Sunday for allegedly issuing bomb threats on his social media against police stations across Uttarakhand, police said on Monday.
According to police, a first information report (FIR) was registered on Tuesday against the accused identified as Jaspreet Singh at Kotwali Nagar police station under sections 351(3) and 353 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 66F of the Information Technology Act. Singh’s bomb threat posts went viral on various social media platforms, creating panic among the public and raising law and order concerns, police said.
Dehradun senior superintendent of police (SSP) Pramendra Dobhal said a special team analysed digital footprints, cyber evidence, technical surveillance inputs and social media activity before identifying and tracing the accused.
“During questioning, Jaspreet told police he was angered by the June 16 clash between locals and Nihang Sikhs in Karnaprayag in Chamoli district and the subsequent police action. After watching social media reels related to the incident, on June 25 he posted the bomb threat from his Instagram account, ‘Jaspreet-devil’, with the intention of creating fear among the public and challenging the Uttarakhand Police,” Dobhal said.
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On June 16, a clash broke out between some Nihang pilgrims returning after paying obeisance at Sri Hemkunt Sahib gurdwara and local residents in Karnaprayag over a parking dispute. Five people, including a Sikh pilgrim, sustained injuries.
The following day, police arrested four Nihang Sikhs after registering an FIR on a local resident’s complaint. A counter FIR was later lodged on June 20 against unidentified locals based on the complaint of the injured pilgrim’s father, alleging that his son and others were assaulted during the incident.
“The police recovered the mobile phone used to upload the threatening posts. The device and other digital evidence have been sent for forensic examination,” SSP said. He added that they appealed to the public to use social media responsibly and warned that posting misleading, threatening or terror-inducing content is a serious punishable offence and offenders can be identified through digital forensic investigation.
