Bomb hoax at five-star hotel rattles Mumbai cops again in 5 days

Mumbai, Aug 23 (IANS) A threat to blow up a five-star hotel near Mumbai airport turned out to be a hoax with a purported motive to extort a large sum of money, though the Mumbai Police again went into a high alert mode for the third time in barely five days, here on Tuesday.

According to officials, on Monday, an anonymous phone call was received by the Hotel Lalit, near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, and the hotel authorities immediately alerted the Sahar Police Station.

The caller reportedly warned that they had placed at least four bombs inside the hotel and demanded an extortion amount of Rs 5 crore to defuse them.

The police lodged a complaint and along with the hotels' security personnel, carried out a comprehensive search of the entire premises but found nothing.

This is the third instance of security threats to Mumbai in the past five days and the police are not taking threats lightly.

It started with the adrift yacht with three AK-56 guns and nearly 250 live rounds of ammunition found at Raigad beach (August 18), followed by WhatsApp messages from a Pakistani number threatening to carry out blasts in Mumbai akin to the 26/11 terror strikes (August 20), and now the threat to the Hotel Lalit.