MUMBAI: The management of

at Mira Road on Wednesday received an email threat with the sender claiming to be

(LeT), the Islamic terrorist organization.

The four-storey club, spread across 10 acres in Kanakia Nagar, belongs to former BJP MLA Narendra Mehta. Construction work is still underway at the club, which began partial operations in February last year. The email, received around 4 am, has asked the hotel management to pay 100 bitcoins to the LeT wallet within 24 hours failing which they would blow up the club.

It has emerged that other hotels in the city have received a similar threat. State anti-terrorism squad (ATS) chief, Deven Bharti, confirmed that a few hotels had got extortion threats and that the police were looking into it. The threats, purportedly from LeT, have been sent from possibly fake email addresses.

Deputy superintendent of police, Shantaram Walvi, confirmed the club management had informed the police about the email threat. He said a team from the ATS and bomb detection squad had inspected the hotel and that security had been beefed up.

The email has threatened to target the children of employees if their demand is not met. A case under sections 384(extortion),387(putting persons in fear of death in order to commit extortion) and 505(intent to incite) of the IPC have been registered by Puneet Mahajan, general manager of the hotel group.

The club is allegedly constructed on wetlands. In September 2019, the Bombay HC had directed the Mira Road police to register an FIR against the ultra luxury club for CRZ violations. Five months after the order, the police along with forest officials on Tuesday visited the hotel and carried out a panchnama of the alleged CRZ violations. Mehta had lost the assembly polls to BJP rebel and independent candidate Geeta Jain last year.