In a bizarre case of unrequited love and revenge, a 30-year-old robotics engineer from Chennai, identified as Rene Joshilda, has been arrested for allegedly orchestrating a series of hoax bomb threats across 11 states and falsely claiming responsibility for a deadly plane crash. The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch apprehended Joshilda for sending over 20 threatening emails to various locations in an attempt to frame a former colleague who did not reciprocate her romantic feelings.
According to police reports, Joshilda, a senior consultant with Deloitte in Chennai, was infatuated with a colleague, Divij Prabhakar, who rejected her advances and later married someone else earlier this year. Consumed by anger and a desire for revenge, she allegedly devised an elaborate plan to implicate him in serious crimes. Between February and June 2025, she is accused of sending multiple bomb threat emails, using Prabhakar's identity, to schools, stadiums, and hospitals across several states, including Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Maharashtra.
The targets included prominent locations such as the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad and numerous schools in Gujarat. Each threat triggered panic, leading to evacuations and extensive search operations by law enforcement agencies. Fortunately, all the alerts turned out to be false.
In a particularly audacious move, Joshilda also claimed responsibility for the Air India Flight AI 171 crash that occurred on June 12. The flight, en route from Ahmedabad to London, crashed shortly after takeoff, hitting the BJ Medical College building and resulting in the tragic death of at least 274 people, including passengers, crew members, and civilians on the ground. Following the crash, the college administration received a chilling email stating, "We crashed the Air India plane yesterday. You thought it was a hoax. Now you know we're serious." The email warned of further attacks and was eventually traced back to Joshilda.
To conceal her identity and location, Joshilda employed sophisticated methods, including using the dark web, VPNs, and encrypted email IDs. She reportedly purchased at least 80 virtual phone numbers over the past two years and sent hundreds of fake emails through the Tor browser, a network for anonymous communication. She even used Pakistani VPNs and created accounts in the name of her former colleague.
Despite her meticulous efforts to cover her tracks, Joshilda made a crucial mistake that ultimately led to her downfall. Investigators discovered that she had logged into both her real and fake email accounts from the same device on one occasion, exposing her IP address and linking her to the hoax emails. "That one careless login gave her away," a police officer stated.
The arrest of Rene Joshilda has exposed a dark side of obsessive behavior and the potential for technology to be misused for malicious purposes. The case highlights the importance of cybersecurity awareness and the need for individuals to protect themselves from online impersonation and identity theft. It also serves as a reminder of the devastating consequences that can arise from unrequited love and the dangers of seeking revenge.
