New Delhi, July 21: A prank has landed a teenager behind bars after swift action by Delhi police, on alert because of the presidential elections.

Mintu Kumar Mehto, 19, had called the Delhi police control room on Wednesday night and said al Qaida would blow up Parliament on Independence Day. Mehto was arrested after the police traced the call to the mobile phone he had used, sources said.

The teenager, a resident of Panchsheel Park in west Delhi’s Vikas Nagar area, wanted to play a prank, but his attempt backfired. Mehto had used his brother’s mobile phone and somebody else’s SIM card to make the call, hoping that he would not be caught.

He has now been remanded in a day’s police custody by magistrate Sanjeev Kumar Pandey of the Tis Hazari courts .

Seeking the remand, public prosecutor Praveen Kumar Bansal said that “there could be involvement of other persons in this entire episode and to unearth it, we need to interrogate him”.

A home ministry official said the security establishment had not been rattled by the news. “We only took precautions, otherwise the claim was not logical.”

Security has been tight in the capital over the past few days with special cell sleuths posted at the Red Fort and Jama Masjid and commandos at Parliament and other important buildings in Lutyens Delhi.