It began with a love triangle and a village panchayat in Azamgarh. It ended with bomb threats to a district court, 50 fake email IDs, and an arrest by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (UP ATS). The man at the centre of it all, police say, was not a terrorist but a jilted lover whose humiliation turned into an elaborate plot to send police after his girlfriend’s fiancé.
Vishal Ranjan, a resident of Baksupur in Azamgarh, was arrested on February 22 after the UP ATS traced a series of bomb threat emails to him through digital forensics, VPN usage logs and social media tracking. The emails were received on February 17 by the District Judge of Jaunpur, police officials said on Sunday.
Sent from multiple fake IDs routed through paid VPN and proxy services, the emails allegedly warned of blowing up the Jaunpur court campus and police line gate. They also allegedly demanded ₹1 lakh in the name of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Crucially, the emails contained specific mobile numbers belonging to the groom’s family, not Ranjan.
During interrogation, Ranjan allegedly disclosed that he had been in a relationship with a woman whose marriage had since been fixed with a man from Jaunpur. An earlier attempt to derail the wedding had backfired badly. He had created a fake social media account in the groom’s name to post objectionable content, which led to a village panchayat where he was forced to apologise publicly, according to a press note issued by UP ATS.
“Motivated by revenge, he collected the mobile numbers of people from the groom’s side who attended the panchayat by accessing a cricket tournament poster circulating on social media. He then created fake email IDs in their names, planted those numbers in the bomb threat emails and sent them to the Jaunpur court, hoping police action would fall on the groom’s family,” the UP ATS added.
Five mobile phones, one laptop, two memory cards, four SIM cards and ₹21,092 in cash were seized from his rented accommodation in Azamgarh. Forensic examination revealed nearly 50 email IDs across Proton Mail, Gmail and Outlook, and around 20 fake Facebook accounts. A drafted bomb threat targeting the Azamgarh Roadways bus station, with the same planted numbers, was also found ready to be sent.
A case has been registered at Line Bazar police station in Jaunpur under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1932 and Section 66 of the IT Act 2008. The UP ATS confirmed sufficient evidence has been collected and legal proceedings are underway.
