Chandigarh, Aug 12 (IANS): The bomb threat in a high-end shopping mall, crowded with shoppers owing to a holiday on the occasion of Eid, on Monday finally turned to be hoax, police said.

Police, along with bomb disposal and anti-sabotage teams, conducted intensive searches of the Elante Mall after getting it vacated of all people.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Nilambari Jagdale, told the media that the police control room got a call that explosives had been planted in the mall.

She said a hunt is on to identify the caller, who made an internet voice call.

Some people at the spot initially thought it was a mock drill ahead of Independence Day, but police clarified that it was not.

"It is not a mock drill. Please cooperate," Chandigarh's Senior Superintendent of Police, Traffic, Shashank Anand, said in response to a tweet by a local resident who complained of chaos at the mall "due to some mock drill".

Anand also advised people not to panic as the situation is being "closely monitored" and to cooperate with the security agencies.