Panic in Delhi as over 150 schools get bomb threat emails

The officer added, “A VPN was used to send the email to the schools; the perpetrator possibly hacked into the database of all schools that got the hoax email. This is being investigated.”

An official said central agencies are “coordinating and sharing” information from Delhi as well as Noida police. “The National Investigation Agency is also looking at all the emails.”

The official also said similar emails were received in other states in the last two days: “Emails were sent to airports and terminals across the country. On Monday, they were sent to hospitals in Delhi.”

Said another officer, “The sender possibly used a ‘dark web’ browser to obtain the Russian VPN… internet service providers in India have been asked to share information about the email so that we can further backtrack it and send a notice to the foreign country.”

‘Intention was to spread panic’

At the schools, meanwhile, authorities were seen using loudspeakers and asking parents not to panic while handing over their children to them. Apart from BDS and Delhi Police personnel, Delhi Fire Services personnel were also roped in to search the premises.

Senior police officers said all schools, including Sanskriti School in Chanakyapuri, DPS in R K Puram, and Vasant Kunj, received the email around 4 am with purported content that bombs had been placed inside these educational institutions and threatening to blow them up.

“Among other schools, Sanskriti School received two separate emails from two different users. The first mail, from mail.ru, came in the morning, but they received another mail at 1.42 pm from a Gmail user, in which the user wrote, ‘The bomb will explode in 10 minutes’,” a senior police officer, adding that they will approach Google for details.

Delhi Police spokesperson Suman Nalwa said that since the email was sent out at the same time, the intention was to spread panic among the people.

Reacting to the incident, Delhi Education Minister Atishi said: “Some schools received bomb threats today morning. Students have been evacuated and those premises are being searched by Delhi Police. So far nothing has been found in any of the schools.”

Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena, who visited DAV Public School in Model Town following the hoax email, said, “Delhi Police reached very quickly and the entire area has been cordoned off and search operations are going on. Dog squads, and bomb disposal units are also working. I want to assure the people… that Delhi Police is fully prepared and we will try to prevent any untoward incident from happening. Delhi Police has found out from where these emails are coming, investigation is underway. All I would like to say is that the culprits will not be spared…”

This is not the first time that Delhi schools have received hoax bomb threats. In most cases, the suspects were minor students of the same school, who were playing a prank or just “having fun”. However, the scale of bomb scare messages this time is unprecedented.