Panic after 70 schools in Bengaluru, outskirts receive 'bomb threats' on email

Bengaluru: As many as 70 private schools in different parts of Bengaluru and the outskirts on Friday received emails of bomb threats that turned out to be 'false' after an extensive search operation.

But the hoax did spook the police and parents, many of whom scrambled from their offices to pick up their children from schools. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asked parents not to panic and ordered police to track down the culprits.

Forty-eight of these schools are located within the city limits while the remaining 22 are from Bengaluru Rural, according to two senior police officers. At least one school is run by the government. Many schools declared a holiday or sent children back soon after classes began.

Police investigations show that all 70 schools received the e-mail with an identical text, a senior officer said.

Bomb squads and anti-sabotage teams combed through each school campus for several hours but could not find traces of any explosives. Police declared the threats "false" towards the evening.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said similar bomb threats sent to schools in the past turned out to be the handiwork of mischief-makers, who were tracked down.

"We are examining the emails and will put an end to it soon," he said. Police have yet to identify where they originated.

What's there in the emails?

According to well-placed police sources, [e-mail] and [e-mail] were among the email addresses used to send the threat message. A copy of the message seen by DH said “there are explosive devices on the school grounds”.

“You are the enemies of Allah, we will kill you and your children. You have a choice to become our slaves or to accept the true religion of Allah Temples (sic). Your idols From Buddha to infinity. They will fly apart from our explosions. Bismillah, we will spread the true religion of Allah to the whole of India. And we sent predators at you,” a part of the email said.

In November, 44 schools in Malaysia received bomb threats sent by another address registered with beeble.com. Local media reports said that the emails were via [e-mail].

"The IP address is from Finland but this IP address can keep changing," Malaysian Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times in a November 23 report.

In May, over 50 schools in Trinidad and Tobago received similar threats of explosives via [e-mail], as reported by local media.

Students sent home

School authorities became aware of the email on Friday morning when the inboxes were checked. They immediately alerted the police and informed the parents of the measures taken for the children's safety.

Neev Academy in Sadashivanagar, one of the schools that received the threats, told the parents that it was closed for the day as “it received security threats from unknown sources”.

"Schools need to be safe spaces, so all threats need to be taken seriously," Kavitha Gupta Sabharwal, the founder of Neev Academy, said in a statement.

Ebenezer International School, Delhi Public School, Vidyashilp Academy, New Cambridge School, Greenwood High and Brooklyn National Public School were some of the other schools that received the threat emails, police sources said.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered police to track down the culprits.

"We have obtained a report on this. A similar incident had happened earlier. We should be careful," he said on the sidelines of an event at Vidhana Soudha.

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who lives close to Neev Academy in Sadashivanagar, echoed him. "Police are investigating the emails and we are confident of catching the culprits in less than 24 hours," he told reporters.

D Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said the Department of School Education and Literacy had "made a mistake" by publishing the schools' details on its website.

Email service provider based in Cyprus

The two addresses used to send the email were registered with beeble.com – an email provider based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Beeble has yet to reply to an emailed query by DH.