Mohali stadium searched following bomb call

    
MOHALI: The Chandigarh Police on Monday conducted a thorough search of the PCA stadium here, where the second Test between India and Australia is being played, after they received a call of a bomb being planted inside a factory close to the ground.
    
"The call was made from a factory here in which the caller stated that a bomb had been planted inside the factory and would be blown up any time. We took no chances thinking that some anti-social elements may actually try to carry out any untoward inside the stadium," Mohali Police chief, Jatinder Singh Aulakh said.
    
He said although the call proved to be a hoax, they took no chances and conducted a thorough search of the already heavily protected stadium.
    
Additional police force, a bomb disposal squad and sniffer dogs were pressed into service to search the stadium, where 700 Punjab Police cops were already deployed in view of the match.
    
"We allowed the match to carry on as normal so as to avoid creating any panic. In the meantime, we also identified the persons who had made the call," he said.
    
He said two workers of a screw manufacturing factory have been rounded up and later one of them had admitted that he had made the call just for fun.
    
"He said he had seen on TV that police got several hoax calls after the Delhi bomb blasts following which he also wanted to try out this," the Mohali Police chief said.
     
A case had been registered by the Chandigarh Police at the Sector 34 Police Station and the culprits had been identified as Manik Kumar and Tiwari Lal.