What began as a high-stakes investigation into bomb threats and a chilling claim of downing an Air India flight has unraveled into a deeply personal story of unrequited love, cyber manipulation, and emotional revenge.
Ahmedabad Police on Monday revealed that Rene Joshilda, a senior consultant at a multinational firm in Chennai, was behind a wave of hoax bomb threats sent across 12 Indian states. Her goal: to frame Divij Prabhakar, a man who had rejected her romantic advances and later married someone else in February.
According to investigators, Joshilda's obsession with Prabhakar turned vindictive after he spurned her feelings. In a calculated campaign of revenge, she weaponized her background in robotics and cybersecurity to unleash panic on a national scale.
Employed at Deloitte since 2022, Joshilda allegedly created multiple fake email IDs, some under Prabhakar’s name, and masked her activities using VPNs, virtual numbers, and tools from the dark web. Despite meticulous efforts to cover her tracks, a minor technical slip helped cybercrime officials trace the threats back to her Chennai residence.
Between May and June, she sent 13 threat emails to the Narendra Modi Stadium, four to Geneva Liberal School, three to Divya Jyoti School, and one to BJ Medical College. Locations across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Telangana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana were also targeted—often before major public events or VIP visits.
In one particularly alarming message, Joshilda falsely claimed to have caused an Air India plane crash, intensifying fears among authorities and citizens.
The investigation began after a June 3 bomb threat to a school prompted an FIR at the Sarkhej police station in Ahmedabad. What followed was weeks of nationwide anxiety, diverted law enforcement resources, and cross-agency coordination before the plot unraveled.
Police described the case as a stark reminder of how personal grievances, when fused with technical know-how, can spiral into major threats to public security. The case stands as one of the most striking examples of emotional revenge executed through digital deception in recent years.
(This story is published from a syndicated feed)