MUMBAI, March 13: Police received bomb hoax calls from nearly seven HSC examination centres on Friday.Three bomb disposal squads were immediately pressed into action after receiving `serious-sounding' tip-offs from anonymous callers in the morning, police said. However, no explosives were found in any institutions where the disposal squad visited.The squad, along with the concerned police station, scanned the college campuses of Ismail Yousuf college at Jogeshwari; Bhavan's at Andheri; Mithibai, Sathye and SNDT at Vile Parle; National at Bandra and Somani at Chowpatty.Joint Police Commissioner (Law and Order) P S Pasricha told Express Newsline, ``At around 9 am we received calls saying that bombs had been planted at various colleges, but these are usually hoax calls by mischievous persons.''A member of the bomb squad added that students are already tense due to the strike of non-teaching college employees, and such bomb scares will only worsen the situation. ``Thankfully this happened on aholiday, or else we would have had to disturb the HSC candidates at the time of exams,'' he remarked.At Bhavan's college campus where the squad searched all the classrooms for nearly two hours, trained police dogs, Zanzeer and Soni, were seen sniffing packages of exam-related papers and articles. The college principal D B Kadam, said: ``It was a major jolt to us when we were told about a potential bomb placed within the premises, but since our security is very tight the police did not find anything.''State Minister of Higher and Technical Education Datta Rane expressed surprise over the bomb scare. ``Somebody is definitely trying to disrupt the smooth conduct of HSC exams by spreading such panic. However, the state is capable of handling this situation too,'' he said. When asked whether the striking non-teaching college staff could be behind this hoax, the minister did not wish to comment till he could gather enough proof in this matter.Principal Rupa Shah of Mithibai college, however, said: ``Whoeverwants to disrupt the exams will not cause an explosion on a holiday, hence the bomb squad has decided to visit our campus again on Saturday before the exam paper begins in fact the CID police was at my college till late in the evening to search the campus.''When contacted, the union leader of non-teaching employees, R B Singh said that this search should not be linked with the exams or the education department as the city had recently witnessed blasts at the time of elections; hence the security is tightened.Singh added that his federation will soon be meeting the Chief Minister to properly discuss their demands and try to resolve the strike.
