Obsessive Love, VPNs, 1 Wrong Login: Woman Techie’s Bizarre Bomb Hoax Saga

Ahmedabad:

Truth is stranger than fiction, and reality more bizarre than crime shows. In a tale of spurned love tailormade for an OTT series, a 30-year-old robotics engineer from Chennai set off alarm bells in 11 states by allegedly sending hoax bomb threats. She used fake email IDs with the name of her love interest — who did not love her back and recently married someone else — to frame him as revenge for her unrequited affection, police have found.

For months, 30-year-old Rene Joshilda used VPNs and fake email IDs to stay under the radar as police across multiple states hit a wall while investigating the bomb hoaxes. But one mistake gave her away and led the police to her door.According to police, Rene Joshilda completed her engineering from Chennai and then pursued a course in robotics. She had been working in Chennai as a senior consultant at Deloitte. During a project in Bengaluru, she met Divij Prabhakar and fell for him. The attraction, however, was one-sided. Divij never reciprocated Rene’s feelings and married someone else this February. This left Rene fuming, and she plotted the most ruthless revenge. She set up several fake email IDs — different variations of Divij Prabhakar’s name — and started sending bomb threats to schools, hospitals and sports venues.