Nearly 50 Bengaluru schools get bomb threats after Delhi incidents; students evacuated

Bengaluru: Students and staff were evacuated after nearly 50 schools across Bengaluru received bomb threat emails on Friday morning.

The schools include some of the well-known names in the city centre as well as those in the outer areas.

A single, identical email entitled 'Bombs inside the school' was sent to all schools at 7.24 am from the user, [e-mail].

It warned that several explosive devices (Trinitrotoluene) have been "skillfully you hidden in black plastic bags" within school classrooms.

"I will erase every last one of you from this world. Not a single soul will survive. I will gladly laugh when I watch the news, only to see the parents show up at the school and to be greeted by the cold, dismembered bodies of their children.

"You all deserve to suffer. I truly hate my life. I will commit suicide after the news kicks in. I will slit my throat and slit my wrists.

"I was never truly helped. Psychiatrists, psychologists—no one has ever cared, and no one will ever care. You only care about medicating the helpless and clueless humans. Psychiatrists never tell you that those meds ruin your organs or that they cause disgusting weight gain.

"You brainwash people into thinking psychiatric meds can help them. But they don't. I am living proof that they do not.

"You all deserve this. You deserve to suffer just like me," reads the email in all uppercase.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh said all schools had been evacuated and physical searches were being carried out at each institution. The operation will likely take the whole day, he added.

According to him, 12 police teams have been dispatched to the schools to conduct the inspections.

"Our teams are going to all schools one by one and conducting searches. Nothing has been found as yet but students have been evacuated as a precaution," he told DH.

The police chief explained that the searches are typically carried out in two stages. First, a preliminary physical check is conducted. If anything suspicious or objectionable is found, teams specialising in bomb detection and disposal are then sent for a thorough examination and further action.

"So far, we didn't have to send these specialised teams," he added.

Singh expressed optimism that the threat was a hoax, much like the similar ones reported in the past.

In one past incident, Bengaluru police had arrested an MNC staffer for sending these threat emails. "We hope that this one is also like that," he added.

The development comes on a day when over 20 schools received bomb threats in Delhi, sparking panic among students and parents.