BENGALURU, 12 MARCH

City police have sought Interpol’s help to find out the origin of a bomb threat email sent to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, other ministers and senior government officials last week.

“As it is Proton mail (encrypted), we have sought information from Interpol through Criminal Investigation Department and Central Bureau of Investigation,” City Police Commissioner B Dayananda said.

A day after a low-intensity blast at The Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru on 1 March, the ministers and officials received the bomb threat email demanding a ransom of $2.5 million (around Rs 20 crore). Having a subject line of ‘Explosion alert 02’”, the mail stated: “What are your thoughts on the movie trailer? If you don’t provide us with 2.5 million dollars, we will cause large explosions on buses, trains, temples, hotels and public areas throughout Karnataka.”

The email, referring to Karnataka State Road Transportation Corporation’s luxury bus Ambari Utsav, said, “We want to show you one trailer where we are going to explode the next one in the Ambari Utsav bus. After the Ambari Utsav bus blast, we will raise our demands on social media and put up screenshots of the mail sent to you on social media. We will tweet information about the next explosion.”