One-sided love triggers bomb hoax wave

Time of India

8 hours ago

Ahmedabad: A 30-year-old woman working as a senior consultant with an IT firm in Chennai was arrested by the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch for allegedly sending at least 21 bomb threat emails across 12 Indian states, including Gujarat.
In the state, multiple schools, Narendra Modi cricket stadium and BJ Medical College were among the institutes targeted by Rene Joshilda's threat mail.
The accused, Joshilda, an electrical engineer by qualification working with Deloitte USI in Chennai allegedly acted out of revenge after the man she secretly loved got married on Feb 25, police officials said. To implicate him, she sent bomb threat emails either in his name or by accusing him of involvement in a rape case where the police failed to act.
A senior officer from the Ahmedabad City Cyber Crime police said the woman was obsessed with a male colleague who was unaware of her feelings. Over the past two years, such was her obsession with her male colleague that she harassed women who interacted with him and even went to the extent of creating a fake marriage certificate of her marriage with the colleague and circulated it to all her office colleagues including herself.
"When they were working together, she used to create fake email accounts and harass any woman who showed any interest in her secret lover. In one case, she harassed a woman colleague suspecting her to be interested in the male colleague to the extent that she quit her job," said the police officer.
In the past two years, Joshilda bought at least 80 numbers through VPN and is suspected to have sent hundreds of fake emails and messages.
She was devastated when she found out that her "male interest" married another woman. In fact, this development proved the tipping point, throwing her into a spiral of revenge where she shot off a series of bomb hoax mails in a bid to create major police and legal trouble for the man, police said.
Police said Joshilda used sophisticated cyber tools like VPNs, virtual numbers, and spoofed emails, along with dark web resources to mask her identity.
She reportedly created multiple fake email accounts under male names to mislead investigators.
H
er targets included schools, hospitals, and stadiums in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and others. Ahmedabad police launched an investigation after one of the emails reached Geneva Liberal School in Sarkhej. Based on technical analysis, she was traced and arrested from Chennai.
Joshilda sent such emails for over a year, carefully masking her identity. However, a small digital error during one of the email transmissions helped investigators identify her.
Police retrieved several digital and documentary evidence from her possession and are investigating if others were involved. "She used dark web tools and spoofed emails to fake identities, but made one digital mistake that led us to her," said JCP Sharad Singhal.
"She is skilled in cyber tools and meticulously tried to hide her tracks."
Sources said that Joshilda mentioned the male colleague's name in at least half a dozen mails of bomb threat which led the cops to reach out to him. Joshilda was a suspect and technical surveillance confirmed that she was behind the slew of bomb hoax mails which had kept the authorities on their toes across states in the recent past.
Police recovered devices, technical evidence, and fake accounts linked to 21 hoax threats.
Further investigation is underway to verify if more people were involved.
Box 1: AI plane crash mentioned in email to Ahmedabad college
On June 13, Ahmedabad's BJ Medical College received a threat email referencing the Air India plane crash that killed a former Gujarat chief minister. The sender claimed responsibility for the crash and warned that authorities misjudged their intent. The message read: "We crashed the Air India plane yesterday.
You thought it was a hoax. Now you know we're serious."
The email further warned that more attacks would follow and implied a connection between the crash and the sender's previous warnings that was ignored. The chilling message raised alarms across security agencies, prompting urgent checks and increased surveillance. Investigation revealed this threat was also sent by Reni Joshilda as part of her plan to escalate fear and falsely portray her 'secret lover' as a dangerous individual.
Box 2: HC bomb threat case still unsolved
City police are yet to solve the high court bomb hoax case. On June 9, an anonymous email threatened to blow up the Gujarat high court building. An investigation was conducted, but cops are yet to ascertain who the sender was. They suspect that Reni Joshilda or some aide might be behind that threat.