The Ahmedabad City Police Control Room on Sunday received a fax stating that an accused in the July 26 serial blast case was killed inside the Sabarmati Central Jail and two other undertrials were seriously ill. The police immediately swung into action to find out the source of the fax, which turned out to be a hoax.

According to the details of the matter, the fax was sent to the control room from a public telephone and fax booth near GPO in the Relief Road area. “The city police are investigating to trace out the sender of the fax. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone II, S M Katara, is supervising the matter,” said a city police inspector.

Katara said, “We are looking into the details. We first verified its authenticity; and when it was found that the fax content was false, we started looking into its source.”

The fax was allegedly signed by one Sakib Ahmed, whom the police have not been able to trace yet and believe it could be a false name. It mentioned that an accused in the Ahmedabad blasts case, Sajid Mansuri, has been killed in the jail. It further stated that two more undertrials, Yunus Mansuri and Shahnawaz Gandhi, were serious and needed emergency treatment. Yunus is also an accused in the blasts case.

Meanwhile, the rumour brought many of the relatives of Mansuri and another accused to the jail in the morning. Even the defence lawyers in the case rushed to the jail. They also visited Additional Principal Sessions Judge P B Desai, and sought his intervention in the matter. Later, IG (Prisons) Keshav Kumar told the judge that no one died inside the jail and that some undertrials had sustained injuries in Friday’s rioting incident.

Javedkhan Pathan, a defence lawyer, said: “We were very apprehensive about what had actually happened, as the jail authorities were not allowing us to meet any of the undertrials. So, we met P B Desai. Later, Kumar assured us that they will allow the relatives to meet the undertrials on Monday.”

Kumar, meanwhile, told Newsline: “We have initiated legal action against a local news channel, which had flashed false news of murder inside the jail without verifying the same.”

A major incident of rioting was reported inside the jail on Friday in which the jail staff had to resort to lathicharge to control the undertrials. Some jail staffers and inmates were also injured in the incident. A complaint of rioting was lodged against 56 inmates.