To postpone auction, agent makes hoax call

S Ahmed Ali, TNN | Aug 2, 2013, 03.33 AM IST

MUMBAI: An estate agent from Kandivli, who made a hoax call to the police control room regarding a possible blast at the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) at the Income Tax building in Billard Pier to postpone a property auction verdict, was arrested by the crime branch on Thursday.

Alok Dinesh Tanna (29) thought that if he made a hoax call, the auction verdict, which was going in someone else's favour, would be postponed and he could manage to get a favourable order at the next hearing.

 But he ran out of luck when the police control room tracked the cell phone number from which he had made the call.

On July 26, Tanna anonymously called up the police control room and said he was passing off an important information that he had overheard. He said a bomb has been placed at the Debt Recovery Tribunal and it may go off anytime.

 "Within a few minutes, several police teams, including the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) and sniffer dogs, were rushed to the spot. After three hours of search, nothing was found," said Subhash Sawant, senior inspector of unit 11.

The police registered an offence against unknown persons and the crime branch also conduced a parallel probe. 

During the course of investigations, police tracked down the cell phone number from which the hoax call was made.

"We traced the person in whose name the Sim card was registered. He said he was not using the number. However, we got some leads from there and picked up Tanna who runs an estate agency near Raghuleela Mall in Kandivli," said Niket Kaushik, additional commissioner of police (crime).

On Thursday, the police questioned Tanna on length. 

He finally admitted to have made the hoax call because he wanted to postpone a DRT auction order which was to take place on July 26

. "Tanna claims that the order was likely to go in other party's favour and hence to cancel or postpone the order he made this hoax call," said investigating officer Chimaji Adhav.


Tanna, who has been booked under various IPC sections for threatening, giving false information, endangering human life, has been remanded in police custody.