Mumbai: ICMR scientist from Powai gets beheading videos, threat on email; probe launched

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The Mumbai Police have launched investigations into a death threat issued to a 35-year-old scientist with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) via an email. The sender also attached two videos of beheading two people along with the email in which Rs 50,000 has also been demanded from the scientist, a Powai resident.

According to official sources, the email was received by the scientist on November 11. The scientist told the police that he checked the email around the afternoon. He then informed his senior about the email. Later, he lodged an official complaint in the matter and the police registered a case against an unidentified suspect.

"On the complaint, an FIR under sections 385, 506 (2) of the IPC and section 66 of the Information Technology Act was registered by the Bhoiwada Police recently and an investigation in the matter has been launched in the matter," an official said.

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In his statement to the police, the scientist said that the videos attached to the email showed two people being beheaded using a sharp weapon.

The content of the email says that the sender was a very dangerous person and that he worked with a Mexican cartel between 2012 and 2015. The sender wrote that he had already had three murder cases on him and that his recent target was a doctor from Muzaffarpur in Bihar who did not pay him Rs 50,000. The sender wrote that he uses a machete to kill his targets and the same would be used if the scientist failed to pay him the money, the sources said.

In the email, the sender gave the scientist a deadline to pay Rs 50,000 before 10:00 pm the same day, after which he would not contact him again but would behead him with a machete.