Kumar has been booked for criminal conspiracy. He has told the police that he did it out of frustration after his maternal brother beat him to a job —becoming a Delhi Police constable — despite the fact that Kumar is MSc in Physics. He had sent an e-mail to a Noida-based news channel last month, warning of random terror attacks in Delhi.

“It was a conspiracy to frame his cousin, who joined the Delhi Police last year,” DCP (Special Cell) Alok Kumar said.

A police officer said Kumar created two bogus e-mail accounts — in the name of his cousin, and in the name of Babbar Khan, a Lashkar militant. He then began exchanging mails from the two accounts. “He sent a few emails — the topic of discussion was always terror strikes,” the officer said. “He mentioned in the mails that VIPs and important buildings would be targeted; the police got suspicious since both mails were sent from cyber cafes in Shakarpur, east Delhi.”

Kumar, the officer said, took a cue from last year’s serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh courts in which the perpetrators had sent an e-mail warning of the strikes to a channel. But with the UP Police’s anti-terrorist squad and Delhi Police hot on his trail it was a question of time before Kumar was arrested, the officer said.