Varanasi: The Government Railway Police (GRP), Varanasi, arrested a man from Thane and brought him here on transit remand on Thursday for allegedly making repeated hoax calls about bombs being planted in the Gorakhpur-Mumbai Kashi Express. Due to one such hoax call on Jan 6, the train was stopped in Mau for hours for proper checking. Police said the accused — Rajesh Shukla — had issued similar threats and was sent to jail in the past. The 42-year-old accused, hailing from Machhlishehar, Jaunpur, was living in Thane and working as a watchman in a housing society to make ends meet.GRP Varanasi CO Kunwar Prabhat Singh reported that special teams were formed to track down the person behind repeated hoax calls made to the Prayagraj Control Room on November 18, 2025, and January 6, 2026, falsely claiming a bomb was placed in the Kashi Express. The GRP team successfully traced the calls to a public calling centre in Mumbai, using technical evidence.After that, a GRP team conducted a raid and arrested Shukla from Thane. During the investigation, police recovered a diary from his possession, containing several important phone numbers, including that of the Prayagraj Control Room. After being produced before a local court, he was brought to Varanasi on transit remand. Further investigation revealed that on June 2, 2025, he gave fake information about a bomb in a train, for which he was arrested and sent to jail. However, after coming out on bail, he made similar hoax calls on Nov 18, 2025, and Jan 6.On Nov 18, 2025, Kashi Express was halted at Janghai for hours for checking, while on Jan 6, the train was stopped in Mau and evacuated before a thorough search.Police said repeated bids to create panic prompted GRP to consider him a habitual offender. Officials said Shukla confessed to his crime but did not give any reason for making such calls. The accused’s intention behind making the hoax bomb call seemed to be to harass the police and railway administration, causing panic among passengers.
