40 private schools across Bengaluru receive hoax bomb threat emails

Schools in areas including Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Kengeri and parts of Central and East Bengaluru were among those targeted. Police teams, along with the bomb disposal squad and dog squads, were swiftly deployed on the campuses to carry out search operations. Following extensive searches by the police and bomb detection squad, the threats were declared a hoax.

Some of the schools that received the threat include MS Dhoni Global School, St Germain Academy, The Bangalore School, Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, Bishop Cotton Girls’ School, The International School Bangalore (TISB), GEAR Innovative School (Knowledgeum Academy), DPS Bangalore South, BS International School, Baldwin Girls’ High School, St Joseph’s Indian High School, and Sophia High School.

According to police authorities the investigation will be handled by cybercrime police stations and led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) overseeing the Central Cybercrime Police Station. Commenting on the development, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said in Mysuru that the government will soon bring in a law against people spreading false information and provoking unrest in the society.

‘Not a single soul will survive,’ email says

According to police sources, the email — sent from an account under the name “Roadkill” — claimed that multiple explosives (specifically Trinitrotoluene or TNT) had been hidden in black plastic bags within the classrooms. The message also expressed intent to harm children and deep frustration with mental health care systems.

The email read, “I will erase every last one of you from this world. not a single soul will survive. I will gladly laugh when I watch the news, only to see the parents show up at the school and be greeted by the cold, dismembered bodies of their children.”

It added, “You all deserve to suffer. i truly hate my life, i will commit suicide after the news kick in. I will slit my throat and slit my wrists.”

Further, the sender claimed, “I was never truly helped, psychiatrists, psychologists, no one has ever cared and no one will ever care. you only care about medicating the helpless and clueless humans, psychiatrists never tell you that those meds ruin your organs or that they cause disgusting weight gain.You brainwash people into thinking psychiatric meds can help them. but they don’t. I am living proof that they do not.”

Over the past week, approximately 28 schools in Delhi, including St Thomas, Vasant Valley, and Mother’s International, reported receiving comparable emails, often sent through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or the dark web to obscure their origins. Similarly, in December 2023, nearly 70 schools in and around Bengaluru received hoax bomb threat emails, sending school and police authorities into a tizzy.

In the last three years, 169 cases of hoax bomb threat were registered in Karnataka, out of which 133 were registered in Bengaluru city for hoax bomb threats to hotels, restaurants, schools and colleges. According to the data from the Karnataka Home Department, 10 individuals have been arrested in Bengaluru in the last three years for such incidents.