LAHORE, Oct 11: A bomb call at the Government College University, Lahore, and another at a residential building in Garhi Shahu main bazaar turned out to be hoaxes on Saturday.
The GCU’s deputy registrar received a call from a landline (042-7246749) made by an unidentified man at around 1:45pm who claimed a blast was about to occur on the varsity premises.
GCU Security Officer Muhammad Fazal told Dawn that the information was passed on to Rescue 15 emergency service personnel who also informed New Anarkali police about the situation. The Bomb Disposal Squad officials reached the spot along with police, conducted a ‘thorough’ search inside the varsity and cleared the campus after one-and-a-half hour.
However, a GCU student, asking not be named, said the BDS officials and police just took a round of some parts of the campus, including cafeteria, without launching a comprehensive search operation.
He said though the whole university was not got evacuated, some classes, which were in progress, were discontinued for security reasons.
A security guard said as such hoaxes had become a routine, the BDS checked only some ‘important’ places and cleared the university.
The other call was reportedly received at a multi-storey residential complex in Garhi Shahu.
A woman resident, identifying herself as Shabana, informed Rescue 15 that an unidentified caller told her about the presence of a bomb in the building.
Garhi Shahu police and BDS officials rushed to the spot, got evacuated all residents, launched search and cleared the building.
SHO Hanif told Dawn the woman would be interrogated as she had thrice dialed the number (042-6316271) from where she received the call.
He said a case had been lodged against the unidentified caller under 29-Telegraph Act.
Contrary to the past practice of calling Rescue 15 police, the prank callers have now started calling administrations of the targeted places and individuals.
The pranksters, including students, instead of using their cell phones, prefer public call offices, booths and government offices to make hoax calls in order to avoid arrest.
The most likely targets of such calls are public and private educational institutes, banks, offices of multinational companies, government offices and other public places.
Mobile Squad and Mujahid Force SP Babar Bakht told Dawn that only nine cases had been registered against those who made calls directly to the Rescue 15 during the current year. Section 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code and 29-Telegraph Act, which are applied in such cases, are weak and deal with bailable offences.
A police official said the offence should be made non-bailable as people, especially youngsters, had started using such calls routinely to panic the public as well as the law-enforcement agencies.
He said it was difficult for police to trace the prank callers who usually called from PCOs and other such numbers which were used by the public frequently.
Senior Superintendent of Police (operations) Chaudhry Shafiq Ahmad also expressed his concern over the increasing incidence of hoax calls. The SP related a recent case where a teenaged student made a hoax call to police through his cell phone claiming a bomb had been planted in a school in Johar Town.
“The boy was arrested after tracing the number and was later released after his parents guaranteed he won’t play such tricks again,” he said.
He said at least two people had been nominated in some FIRs for making hoax calls but they were still at large. He hoped the trend of making such call would soon die out.