IT engineer from Vadodara held for social media post on ‘bomb’ at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding; to be produced before court

The Mumbai police on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old IT engineer from Vadodara in Gujarat over his social media post that talked about the possibility of a bomb explosion at the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, in Mumbai last week.
The accused was identified as Viral Ashra, an official confirmed. “The accused, an Information Technology (IT) engineer, was nabbed this morning by the Mumbai police’s crime branch from his residence in Gujarat’s Vadodara,” he said.

The Mumbai police were on high alert after an X user @ffsfir wrote a post about the potential threat which read, “My mind is wondering shamelessly that half the world would go upside down tomorrow after a bomb went off at the Ambani wedding. trillions of dollars in one pin code.”

Following the post, the police had stepped up security of the high-profile wedding event held on July 12 in Mumbai. “The police also launched an investigation into the potential threat,” the official said in a statement.

During the probe, the X user was traced to Vadodara, following which a team of the Mumbai crime branch was sent to the city in the neighbouring state and apprehended the accused, who was being brought to Mumbai and would be produced before a local court.

Anant, the youngest son of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, married Radhika, the daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant at a star-studded event held at Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). The mega event was attended by celebrities from across the globe, politicians, who’s who of Hindi and south Indian cinema world and almost all the top cricketers of the country.