Panic, once again: 30 private schools receive bomb threat emails

New Delhi: Around 30 private schools received bomb threat emails in the city on Friday, the second such incident this week. This follows a similar event on December 9, when 44 schools received fake bomb threats.
Warning of possible explosions on December 13 and 14, the letters claimed “there are numerous explosives on your school premises” powerful enough to “destroy buildings and injure people.” The message reportedly came from a darkweb group that cited vulnerabilities in school security, particularly “similar school start-to-end schedules” and inadequate screening of students’ bags at entry points.
The message read: “I’m sure you don’t frequently check your students’ bags when they enter school grounds. The bombs are powerful enough to destroy buildings and hurt people. December 13 and 14, both days can be the day your school will face a bomb blast. On December 14, a parent-teacher meeting is planned in some of the mentioned schools. Indeed, it is a good chance and an advantage for the bombs to explode.
The sender threatened to detonate the bombs at PTA meetings and sporting events, demanding that schools “respond to this email or the bombs would go off.”
According to a Delhi Fire Service officer, many schools have made distress calls. Among them were Bhatnagar International School in Paschim Vihar at 4:21 a.m., Cambridge School in Srinivaspuri at 6:23 a.m., Delhi Public School in East Kailash at 6:35 a.m., South Delhi in Defense Colony at 7:57 a.m., Delhi Public School in Safdarjung Enclave at 8:02 a.m. and Venkateshwar Global School at Rohini at 8:29 am.
Madhavi Goswami, headmaster of Cambridge School, recalls: “I was checking the mail regularly, saw the threatening mail and informed the police around 5:50 a.m. The police assured us of proactive action and an investigation. We informed parents that classes would be online today.
Many institutions asked parents to pick up their children and sent students home. Delhi Police launched a comprehensive security operation at affected schools, deploying bomb squads, dog units, fire tenders and putting ambulances on standby. Security staff carried out extensive searches of the premises, with sniffer dogs searching classrooms, corridors and open spaces. Staff from the Bomb Detection and Disposal Team used specialist equipment to search for possible explosive devices while local police dealt with crowds of worried parents.
A police officer said: “We have carried out the necessary checks in the schools and have not found anything suspicious so far. » Friday’s incident follows a larger-scale threat in May, when more than 100 schools in Delhi-NCR received similar bomb threats via email, which turned out to be hoaxes.