Monday, March 28 2005 15:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: A "bomb hoax" triggered panic at the main ICICI bank premises in Bangalore but a thorough search by police aided by sniffer dogs found nothing in the private sector bank.

Nearly 700 employees were evacuated from the premises, after a bank employee received a call claiming that bombs had been placed in the second and fifth floors of the multi-storeyed building.

"It was a hoax call," Police Commissioner S Mariswamy told PTI, after the search operations of his team, who returned empty handed.

The call was traced to a public phone booth in Krishnarajapuram, a suburb in east Bangalore, police said.

Bangalore has reported a spate of hoax calls this month, sending the police into a tizzy. In one instance, an employee of software firm Wipro was arrested on charge of making the anonymous call. Software major Infosys and Kendriya Vidyalaya schools at Sanjaynagar were also affected by hoax calls.

The hoax calls had created panic coming as they did within days after the Delhi police uncovered a plot by Lashkar-e-Toiba militants to target the Bangalore-based IT firms.