In Rajasthan, making a hoax bomb call can not only land you in trouble but may also leave you poorer by several thousand rupees.

Following a spate of hoax bomb calls, the Jaipur police have filed a civil suit against one such caller and sought Rs 1.15 lakh in damages. The police plan to file six more suits against other such callers, saying it will act as a deterrent and put a full-stop to pranks which have the entire force on alert, sweeping the city for explosives that don’t exist.

The first civil suit was initiated on July 8 against Wahiduddin (40), a resident of Jaipur’s walled city, who in April phoned the police and claimed that a series of blasts would rock the walled city. After his arrest two days later, Wahiduddin told police he made the call using a SIM card he had procured in the name of his son-in-law “to teach him a lesson” for allegedly harassing his daughter.

Jaipur IGP P K Singh, who decided to initiate the civil suit, said police incur huge costs each time a hoax call is made. “The police can never take any threat lightly, particularly after the serial blasts in May last year. But such hoax calls impede normal police working as most police personnel and officers join in detecting the supposed threat,” Singh said, pointing out that such a search usually involved 200-plus personnel in several vehicles.