Bengaluru: The Bengaluru police Friday morning carried out extensive searches in several private schools after the latter received bomb threats via email from unknown persons.
Canine and bomb detection experts scoured the buildings for possible explosive devices once the children were evacuated. Many parents were seen rushing back to school to take students home.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar, who visited one such school near his home — the high-profile NEEV Academy — said he had seen the threatening mails which were proven to be fake after a thorough probe.
Shivakumar said “mischief mongers” keep sending such hoax messages, waiting for authorities to lower their guard. “They strike once the threats are not taken seriously,” the deputy CM further said, adding the government would not let up on the surveillance.
Shivakumar, who is also minister in-charge of the capital city, appealed for calm and said the mails only amounted to “mischief”.
“All parents are anxious… They should be brave,” the minister said, adding the culprits would be cornered within 24 hours.
Speaking to reporters outside his Sadashivanagar home, the minister said it was impossible to physically plant bombs in a school there as the area had heavy police presence.
Bengaluru City Police Commissioner B. Dayananda said bomb disposal squads were sent to all schools that received the threat mail. Some were also in localities such as Basaveshwara Nagar and Yelahanka.
He mentioned that perpetrators of previous hoax mails had been rounded up and the police would get to the bottom of this one too.
“First step is to search all 15 schools that have received the threat and then will check the schools in the vicinity in other police station limits. Only schools in Bengaluru have got this letter and the claim was that bombs were planted. We are verifying it and the process has started,” G. Parameshwara, Karnataka’s minister for home affairs, told reporters on Friday.
In April last year, around 15 schools received similar bomb threats which later turned out to be a hoax. In July 2022, another menacing email to a school was tracked down to its own Class X student. The student sent the mail from his father’s laptop to get exams postponed.
There was panic in schools in January too due to similar threats, but they all turned out to be pranks.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)