JAIPUR/LUCKNOW: On the 16th anniversary of Jaipur serial blasts, at least 68 private schools in and around the city received bomb threats via email on Monday, sparking panic evacuations from the campuses. A similar threat was received by four schools in Lucknow, too.
This came a day after bomb threats received by IGI airport and several other establishments, including hospitals, in Delhi and nearly two weeks after a similar scare at more than 150 schools in the national capital.
Schools in Ahmedabad, too, had received emails earlier this month about bombs being planted on their premises.
Jaipur police commissioner Biju George Joseph said late in the evening that the total number of institutes that received the threat was likely to go up, as schools were still reporting about receiving the email.
A thorough search was carried out at each and every school that received the threat by teams of Rajasthan Police, rapid action force and army experts. No explosives or suspicious objects had been found till late evening, even as the exercise was still on. “We have checked and sanitised 48 schools so far. A case under
cyber terrorism
will be registered,” Joseph said.
The emails, which mentioned PM Narendra Modi’s name, were sent around 4am from the address instrumenttt@inbox.ru, which was traced to a server located in Russia. Police suspect the emails were sent using a VPN (virtual private network) or proxy server to prevent tracing of the IP address. “Our cyber teams are trying to locate the IP address and identify the sender,” Rajasthan DGP U R Sahoo said.
Police received the first call from a school at about 6 am. Initially, four-five schools informed police about the bomb scare. As the day progressed, their numbers started soaring, with schools from even satellite towns like Chomu dialling police, keeping cops on their toes throughout the day. Bomb disposal squads, dog squads, civil defence teams and fire brigade vehicles were roped in, too.
In Lucknow, four private schools received the
bomb threat
, prompting a thorough search, but nothing suspicious was found. “Bomb disposal squad and anti-sabotage teams were immediately sent to these schools and the campuses were thoroughly sanitised,” DCP Prabal Pratap Singh said.
The emails were sent from a common ID. The sender’s email address had been shared with the cyber police team, and the special task force and anti-terrorist squad of UP police roped in to probe the case, the DCP said.
Two schools in the city had received similar emails on May 10, while the Lucknow Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport had received a bomb threat on Sunday.
