Man who sent third e-mail on Delhi blast arrested in Gujarat

Ahmedabad, Sep 12 (PTI) A man has been arrested for
sending the email threatening of a bomb blast in this city in
the western Indian state Gujarat, following last week's blast
in New Delhi which claimed 13 lives, police said here on
Monday.
Manu Oza, the arrested man, allegedly sent the email to
the Delhi police immediately after the blast outside the Delhi
High court on September 7. He had used the name of a
most-wanted terrorist from US agency FBI's list.
"Oza (23), a resident of the Ghodasar area of the city,
was arrested from Patan district on Sunday where he had been
staying with friends for the last five months," city Police
Commissioner S K Sinha told mediapersons.
In the email, Oza had claimed responsibility for the
blast in Delhi, identifying himself as 'Ali Saed El-Hoorie, a
member of the Indian Mujahideen (IM)', Sinha said. The email
was sent using a proxy server in Moscow.
Oza's was the third email to be received by Delhi police
regarding the blast, of the total four.
Oza had said in the email, in coded language, that the
next target would be Ahmedabad, which led to massive security
strengthening here.
India's Home Minister P Chidambaram had said then that
the mail seemed to be sent by an amateur, as the numerical
code used in it was very simple.
"The email was sent with the intention to strike terror
and create an atmosphere of fear.... Oza has been arrested
under section 66 (F) of the Information Technology Act which
carries maximum punishment of life imprisonment," Sinha said.
The Police Commissioner said that Ali Saed El-Hoorie,
whose name Oza used, was on top of most-wanted list of the
FBI. "Hoorie has a reward of USD 5 million on his head," he
added.
According the city crime branch which investigated the
email, Oza is a standard 11 drop-out and he used to work in
a call centre.
Five months ago, he had a fight with his father and left
his home for Patan where he stayed with a friend, Rajkumar
Yadav, and did some data entry job.
After Oza saw the Delhi blast news on TV, he allegedly
decided to send a prank email to terrorise people.
The cyber crime cell of the crime branch traced the
email's origin from the Internet protocol (IP) address and
found that it had been sent from Yadav's laptop, using a USB
mobile broadband connection.
Oza had sent the email without Yadav's knowledge, using
the Internet connection registered in Yadav's name. When Oza
-- who was brought before mediapersons -- was asked why he
sent the email, he said, "For fun and to get famous quickly."
Sinha said, "Oza told us that after the Delhi blast he
got scared for his family in Ahmedabad and to alert the police
he sent the e-mail. There is no evidence of he having link
with a terrorists organisation."
Oza also told reporters that after leaving his home, he
had learnt to hack computers and servers.
He claimed that he had been duped by a placement agent
who had promised him a job in a call centre. "I was mentally
disturbed because of my father," he added.
The city crime branch is also probing another email,
similar to the one sent by Oza. Police believe that this email
too is a prank, but they are not ruling out the possibility
that it could have been sent by a genuine IM operative.