Bomb threat to Guruvayur temple

THRISSUR: Security at the Guruvayur Sreekrishna temple was tightened on Sunday following an anonymous call making a bomb threat. The police said the reporter of a television news channel in Thrissur received a call on his mobile phone at 11.53 am Sunday, threatening that a bomb would go off inside the temple in three days. The police, along with bomb detection and dog squads, rushed to Guruvayur as the reporter alerted them. The Guruvayur police said the reporter had told them that the anonymous call in fluent Malayalam lasted only less than a minute. The caller warned the reporter not to dismiss the call as a hoax.

City Police Commissioner P Vijayan said the call originated from a coin phone booth at a tourist home near the Ernakulam Town railway station. “We are trying to trace the caller,” he said. The police were not taking any chances, though they suspect it to be a hoax. “Security in and around the temple has been strengthened. The police are conducting raids at lodges and hotels in Guruvayur,” he said. The Assistant Commissioner of Police, Guruvayur, is heading the security operations. The temple, an important pilgrim centre in South India, had received such threats earlier also.