Who is Ashwini Kumar, the man behind Mumbai bomb threat messages?

The arrest of Ashwini Kumar, who allegedly threatened to blow up Mumbai on the final day of Ganesh Visarjan, has raised questions about the man at the centre of the scare. Far from being a shadowy terrorist, Kumar is a 51-year-old astrologer and Vastu consultant with a chequered personal history.

Originally from Patna, Kumar has been living in Noida’s Sector 79 for the past five years with his parents. His father, Suresh Kumar, is a retired education department official, while his mother is a homemaker.

Those close to the family say Kumar’s personal life has been strained. He has an estranged wife, Archana, and has previously faced run-ins with the law. In 2023, he spent three months in jail after a complaint was registered against him at Phulwari Sharif police station in Patna by his friend Firoz.

Police investigating the latest threat believe Kumar used the alias “Firoz” when sending the messages to the Mumbai Traffic Police’s WhatsApp number to implicate him.

In those messages, he claimed that 400 kg of RDX had been planted in vehicles across the city, that one crore lives were at risk, and that 14 terrorists had slipped into Mumbai. He also claimed membership of a Pakistan-based jihadi outfit.

Officers who detained him recovered a sizeable haul of gadgets and accessories: seven mobile phones, three SIM cards, six memory card holders, an external SIM slot and two digital cards. Kumar has been booked under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deal with threats to national security and public order.

While investigators are still probing whether Kumar had any actual terror links or whether the threats were a fabrication, his profile suggests a man with a troubled past, failed relationships, and previous brushes with the law is now at the centre of a case that briefly shook Mumbai during one of its biggest festivals.