Edited by: Akash Majumder
The IDs were used to send bomb threats to schools and important establishments in Noida, Delhi-NCR, Gurugram and Mumbai. The accused has been identified as Ankit Shankhwar, a resident of Kanpur’s Ghatampur area. A mobile phone and a laptop were recovered from him. Around five lakh email IDs were found in Excel files on the recovered laptop. Show full article
India News Oct 29, 2026 21:48 IST Published On Oct 29, 2026 21:48 IST Last Updated On Oct 29, 2026 21:48 IST The accused has been identified as Ankit Shankhwar, a resident of Kanpur’s Ghatampur area. NDTV, Unsplash A 24-year-old man from Kanpur has been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for creating fake email IDs and selling them to persons based in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries.
An email ID, “[email protected]”, which was allegedly used to send a bomb threat to the Mumbai mayor’s office on October 23, was also found on the laptop.
The process of producing the accused before the court and seeking police custody remand is underway.
Investigation revealed that the IDs were also used to threaten bomb blasts at singer Diljit Dosanjh’s proposed show in Delhi-NCR and at the residence of a Bollywood actor. The investigation revealed that the accused received payments through Binance crypto wallets. His contacts with individuals and groups in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt and other countries also came to light during interrogation.
Ankit had been creating fake email IDs since 2021. Islam later paid him 6,000 USD Tether (USDT), a cryptocurrency-linked digital token, for supplying fake email IDs.
He used Wi-Fi and proxy networks to conceal his identity and sold these IDs through Facebook groups, according to ATS. ATS said Ankit came into contact with a Bangladeshi national identified as Alamin Islam through Facebook and WhatsApp. The case came to light after several schools in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Delhi and Gurugram reported receiving threatening emails from a particular ID: “[email protected]”. The threat messages purportedly invoked the names of the Khalistan National Army and Babbar Khalsa, ATS said. Technical analysis of the said email ID indicated that it had been accessed from Kanpur, leading investigators to Ankit.
