A 35-year-old man from Maheshi village in Bhagalpur district, Sameer Kumar Ranjan, was arrested Thursday night for allegedly sending a threatening message targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi using a fake social media account.
The threat, which coincided with PM Modi’s two-day visit to Bihar that included a roadshow in Patna and a rally in Bikramganj, set off alarm bells across security and intelligence agencies.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Law and Order) Chandra Bhushan confirmed that Ranjan used a fabricated social media profile under the name of his 70-year-old relative, Mantu Chowdhary, with whom he had an ongoing property dispute. The message was designed to frame Chowdhary and mislead authorities.
Acting on the intelligence alert, Bhagalpur SSP Hriday Kant formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which included members from the Divisional Intelligence Unit, Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism School, and local police. The SIT’s investigation found that Ranjan, a computer-literate BCA graduate, had created and accessed the fake profile 71 times and used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to conceal his identity.
During questioning, Ranjan admitted to sending the message. Chowdhary, who is illiterate and only uses a basic mobile phone, said he had been falsely implicated by Ranjan. The accused, who lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, had been doing odd jobs including sharecropping.
The arrested man remains in custody at Sultanganj Police Station under strict watch, while forensic teams analyze data from his seized smartphone.
Experts noted that although VPNs can obscure digital trails, skilled forensic analysis can still uncover the source of such threats.
