Vadodara IT engineer held for social media bomb threat at Anant Ambani's wedding

Mumbai, Jul 16 (PTI) The Mumbai police on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old IT engineer from Vadodara in Gujarat over his social media post that talked about the possibility of a bomb explosion at the wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of industrialist Mukesh Ambani, here last week, an official said.

The accused was identified as Viral Ashra, he said.

"The accused, an Information Technology (IT) engineer, was nabbed this morning by the Mumbai police's crime branch from his residence in Gujarat's Vadodara," he said.

The Mumbai police were on high alert after an X user @ffsfir wrote a post about the potential threat which read, "My mind is wondering shamelessly that half the world would go upside down tomorrow after a bomb went off at the Ambani wedding. trillions of dollars in one pin code." Following the post, the police had stepped up security of the high-profile wedding event held on July 12 in Mumbai.

"The police also launched an investigation into the potential threat," he said.

During the probe, the X user was traced to Vadodara, following which a team of the Mumbai crime branch was sent to the city in the neighbouring state and apprehended the accused, the official said, adding that the accused was being brought to Mumbai and would be produced before a local court.

Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, married Radhika Merchant, the daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant at a star-studded event held at Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). The mega event was attended by celebrities from across the globe, politicians, who's who of Hindi and south Indian cinema world and almost all the top cricketers of the country. PTI