Man arrested in Kolkata for threatening to blow up Bihar CM's office

Patna, Aug 6 (IANS) The Patna Police have arrested a man from Kolkata for threatening to blow up Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's office here, officials said.

The man, identified as Mohammad Zahid (51) and a native of Bhagwanpur block in Bihar's Begusarai district, was arrested Monday night.

The accused had sent an email on July 16 under the name Al-Qaeda.

The SHO of the Secretariat police station registered an FIR against unknown persons on August 2.

During the investigation, Zahid's whereabouts were traced to the Baubazar area in Kolkata, where he ran a paan shop on 40 BB Ganguly Street. Zahid confessed to sending the email to frame three individuals, and the police seized the mobile phone used to send the email.

“We have arrested an accused who had sent an email threatening to explode the Chief Minister's office of Bihar. He mentioned three mobile numbers in the email. Upon investigation, we found that the individuals associated with these numbers were innocent and had no connection to the email. The main accused hatched the conspiracy to frame them,” said Sushil Kumar, SDPO of Sadar Patna.

The accused, Mohammad Zahid, will be produced in a local court to obtain a transit remand for his transfer to Patna for further investigation.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has faced attacks in the past. On July 27, 2022, a man in his late 20s allegedly attacked the CM in Bakhtiyarpur town, on the outskirts of Patna.

This region is known as his former Lok Sabha constituency, Barh. A video went viral on social media at that time showing the youth walking among the security personnel and then suddenly punching the chief minister while he was paying respects to a statue in the Bakhtiyarpur market.

The security personnel quickly overpowered the accused and took him into custody.