8 picked for sending cautionary SMSes

HYDERABAD: Circulating SMSes which read ‘don’t go to shopping malls, there could be a bomb blast’ landed several youngsters, including girls, in trouble after the Task Force sleuths picked up nearly eight of them who were found circulating the text messages.The Task Force officials said that after the Delhi police received an e-mail last week - a day after the Delhi High Court bomb blast - in which the sender claimed that they would carry out bomb blasts in shopping malls on Tuesday, some SMSes began doing the rounds ‘cautioning’ people not to visit malls.As police got wind of the SMSes in circulation, the Task Force was asked to trace the origin of the SMSes, especially as Ganesh immersion was round the corner.Task Force officials said that the SMS was first traced to a youngster residing in Kalapather in Old City while the Special Branch sleuths got to know of some others who had been circulating these SMSes. “It was a sort of reaction to the e-mail received by the Delhi police,” an official said.Initially, believing that it could be the work of some fundamentalists, Task Force sleuths picked up the youngsters who said that they circulated the SMSes just for the heck of it and had no other motive.Following this, they were let off.