 "Rene Joshilda is accused of sending hoax bomb threats. Image Courtesy: X")
Love is not always rosy. Sometimes, it takes an ugly turn, singeing those involved. One such tale has come to light, when apparently a one-sided love led to a woman committing dark crimes.
After the man she loved married another woman, a robotics engineer from Chennai allegedly used her tech skills to frame him by sending hoax bomb threats. The 30-year-old accused’s actions sent panic across the country.
Here’s a look at the strange case.
What happened?
On June 3, a school in Ahmedabad’s Sarkhej area received an email threatening to blow up the premises. It read: “Police are sleeping, they cannot do anything… We are going to blast a bomb in your school…”. The Geneva Liberal School got similar emails over the next three days.
After a few days, a school in Ahmedabad’s Bopal received threats along the same line.
Around this time, the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, where the Air India Ahmedabad-London flight crashed this month, got an email. “I think now you know power. Like we sent you mail yesterday, we crashed the Air India plane with our former CM (Vijay Rupani). We know the police would have thought that the plane crash was a hoax and ignored it. Well done to our pilot. Now you know we are not playing. Now you know,” the mail reportedly read, referring to the June 12 Air India disaster.
Besides Gujarat, similar hoax bomb threats were reported in 11 other states, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Telangana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu.
How ’love’ took a dark turn
An FIR was registered by the Geneva Liberal School in Ahmedabad earlier in June. On Saturday (June 21), the police arrested a woman, identified as Rene Joshilda, who they accused of writing the threat emails in an “attempt to frame a man she was in love with, but who had married someone else”.
According to the police, the 30-year-old used fake email IDs, virtual private networks (VPNs), and the dark web to stay off the radar, reported PTI.
Joshilda, who was nabbed from her residence in Chennai, was working as a senior consultant in one of the Big Four accounting firms. The police said that the robotics engineer was in love with her male colleague, who was unaware of her feelings.
Impact Shorts
View AllJoshilda’s obsession with him was so toxic that she allegedly harassed women who interacted with her “love interest”. As per a Times of India (TOI) report, she is said to have forged a marriage certificate with the colleague and circulated it to all her colleagues at the office.
“She has done her engineering from Chennai and a course in Robotics. Currently, she is a senior consultant at Deloitte. She loved Divij Prabhakar and wanted to marry him but it remained one-sided,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sharad Singhal told reporters.
Joshilda’s feelings of love became spiteful after Prabhakar tied the knot in February. “In a bid to frame him, she created different email IDs, some of which were in the name of Prabhakar,” the police officer said.
According to the police, Joshilda used the fake email IDs to send bomb threats across the country. She also deployed VPNs, virtual numbers, and dark web resources to hide her identity.
Over the past two years, the techie bought at least 80 numbers through VPN and allegedly sent hundreds of fake emails and messages, reported TOI.
The police accused the woman of sending at least 21 bomb threat emails across 12 Indian states. Singhal said Joshilda is also suspected of having sent hoax bomb threats to the Narendra Modi Stadium in Gujarat in May.
As per the newspaper’s sources, Joshilda mentioned the male colleague’s name in at least half a dozen hoax bomb threat emails. She allegedly timed her threats to coincide with VIP visits and religious events.
“These threats misdirected police resources and spread panic among citizens. Her arrest is significant, especially with the Jagannath Rath Yatra scheduled in Ahmedabad on June 27,” said JCP Singhal.
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How police cracked the case
The police said that a small mistake by the Chennai-based engineer led to her arrest.
“We were tracking her for a long time. She was very smart and didn’t reveal her virtual trail, but due to a small mistake of hers, we tracked her and caught her from her house in Chennai,” Singhal said.
Six months ago, Joshilda logged into her real and fake email accounts from the same device once, as per an Ahmedabad Mirror report. This exposed her IP address, tying her to the hoax emails. “That one careless login gave her away,” a police officer said.
According to JCP Singhal, the police have recovered significant “digital and paper evidence” against her. “We can say that we have busted a big module,” the police officer said.
Police also claimed Joshilda confessed to sending the emails and creating multiple IDs in the man’s name. The Gujarat Police is coordinating with its counterparts in other states where such mails were sent and the probe is on to determine whether other people were involved.
With inputs from agencies