Several Delhi schools receive bomb threat, students sent home

More than 40 schools in the national capital received bomb threats via email on Monday, Delhi Police said.

These schools included Mother Mary’s School, British School, Salwan Public School, Delhi Public School and Cambridge School.

The series of threats first began with RK Puram’s Delhi Public School and Paschim Vihar’s GD Goenka School. Police said that DPS received the threat at 7:06 am, while the latter got the email at 6:15 am.

The threat email read, “I planted multiple bombs inside (school) buildings. The bombs are small and hidden very well. It will not cause much damage to the building, but many people will be injured when the bombs detonate. If I do not receive $30,000 I will detonate the bombs,” ANI reported.

Meanwhile, the school administration took prompt action and sent the students back home.

Police, along with fire officials, dog squad, bomb detection teams, and local cops reached the spot and conducted search operations in the school.

A police official said that so far nothing suspicious has been found at DPS and GD Goenka.

This incident comes just a week after Rohini’s Venkateshwar Global School received a bomb threat via email, which later turned out to be a hoax.

A day earlier, a low-intensity blast had taken place in Prashant Vihar, within a one-kilometer range of the school. Parents had been immediately informed of the situation and students were sent home.

Delhi Fire Services (DFS) officials, along with police, bomb disposal squad, and the dog squad checked and searched the entire premises of the school.

Notably, two months ago, several CRPF schools across the national capital and the country had received bomb threats via email.

The Delhi High Court on November 19 had instructed the Aam Aadmi Party-led government and Delhi police to develop a comprehensive action plan, including an extensive Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with bomb threats and other similar emergencies.

The court set a eight-week deadline for the completion of these tasks. It said that the SOP must define the roles and responsibilities of all the stakeholders, including school administration, municipal authorities, police and other law enforcement agencies. There should be smooth coordination and effective implementation of plans, the court added.

The bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula noted that the action plan must be developed after consulting relevant stakeholders and state departments.

Additionally, in Delhi’s neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, bomb threat at three key locations in Lucknow turned out to be hoax. An unidentified caller had dialed 112, UP police’s integrated emergency response centre, on Saturday night and claimed that he had planted bombs at Hussainganj metro station, Charbagh railway station and Alambagh bus stand.

All three locations were checked thoroughly after the call, said Manish Singh, additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP)-Central.

Over the past few days, several bomb threats have been received, including at the famous Taj Mahal. In fact, Mumbai Police had received a threat message claiming to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The WhatsApp message, sent to the traffic police helpline on Saturday, referred to two ISI agents and a plan to carry out a bomb blast aimed at PM Modi.