On 15th November, a former Tate Consultancy Services (TCS) employee, B Shruthi Shetty, was reportedly taken into custody for allegedly making bomb threats to the company’s Bengaluru office on Hosur Road in Karnataka. The 26-year-old had been employed by the IT giant for a few months before quitting to pursue a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 2017.
Once Shruthi found out that TCS isn’t going to hire her again, it offended her to such an extent that she resorted to making the fictitious call as a way to exact revenge on the business. She was arrested from her Belagavi residence, located approximately 500 km from Bengaluru, after she made the fake bomb threat on 14th November and warned that a bomb was put in the B Block of Think Campus of TCS.
The former employee of the company called TCS’s transport helpdesk and claimed to have planted a bomb in building 2 on the corporation’s property. She called at 4:59 AM. and stated that a blast would occur in the next five minutes and demanded the evacuation of the building. The call sent the staff into a frenzy and the police were called right away, and every person who was working at the time was evacuated to a secure area.
After notifying the Parappana Agrahara officials, a team of bomb disposal unit swiftly reached the campus. Nothing suspicious was found during the thorough check of the facility by the bomb disposal and dog squads. No explosives were discovered despite a thorough search by the police.
Assistant security officer Raju Chetry informed the authorities that the threat was a hoax and the Police submitted a case under Sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) based on his complaint and an investigation was then launched. Police discovered that the numbers used for the calls were active in Belagavi throughout the course of their inquiry after which a police squad was sent to catch the culprit.
The management was given the go-ahead to allow the evacuated staff to return and go on with their regular job once law enforcement verified that the bomb threat was a hoax. During the perpetrator’s questioning, cops learned that the Bachelor of Business Management (BBM) graduate was upset that TCS had rejected her application for rehire after she left the company in 2017 to pursue an MBA. She applied to a number of organisations, but she was unable to secure employment.
Shruthi Shetty, who was apparently drunk at the time, called the company bus driver with whom she had developed a good relationship while working there to convey the threat. It has been revealed that her mother’s cell phone was used to make the hoax call. Shetty has been freed on bond. Her parents disclosed that the reason behind this crime was her struggle with depression.
