By IANS,
Mohali (Punjab) : A bomb scare Monday at a factory near the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium where the second cricket Test between India and Australia is being played prompted the police to thoroughly search the stadium as a precautionary measure but nothing untoward was found, the authorities said.
An all-clear was sounded after the police searched the factory, located four km from the stadium.
The police also traced and arrested the man who made the hoax call and he said he did it for a lark.
“We called additional police force and searched every nook and corner of the stadium with the help of sniffer dogs and the bomb disposal squad. However, we took special care to ensure that the search operation did not hamper the match and create panic among the spectators,” Mohali police chief Jatinder Singh Aulakh told IANS.
“The call was made to the Chandigarh police control room, saying that a bomb had been planted in a factory in Mohali and can blow up any time,” Aulakh added.
The PCA stadium is situated in a thickly populated area of Mohali town, around 10 km from Chandigarh. The stadium and its surrounding areas have already been converted into a high security zone with over 700 police personnel deployed there.
“We traced the call and arrested the accused, who works in a screw manufacturing factory. He has confessed his crime,” Aulakh stated.
“We did not find anything suspicious at the factory but we suspected that some anti-social elements might try to divert our attention from the PCA stadium. Therefore, without taking any chances, we conducted an extensive search at the stadium,” Aulakh pointed out.
The arrested man revealed that he had heard on TV that people made hoax calls and that he wanted to emulate them, the police said.