Panic across Chandigarh as 30 schools receive bomb threats

As per the police, upon receiving the emails, anti-sabotage teams, bomb disposal squads, local police units, along with fire brigade, ambulance services, and PCR teams, were rushed to the schools immediately

Panic gripped Chandigarh on Wednesday morning as 30 schools – 20 private and 10 government – received bomb threat emails just two days after Republic Day, necessitating a mass evacuation of students and a city-wide security sweep.

The mails came from a gmail account around 8 am, when most schools were opening for the day. (Ravi Kumar/HT)

As per the police, upon receiving the emails, anti-sabotage teams, bomb disposal squads, local police units, along with the fire brigade, ambulance services, and PCR teams, were rushed to the schools immediately. After a thorough search, police officials confirmed that nothing suspicious was found.

Among the high-profile schools that received the threats were Vivek High School, Sector 38, Strawberry Fields High School, St John’s High School, Sacred Heart Senior Secondary School, Sector 26, and Carmel Convent School in Sector 9, alongside Government Model Senior Secondary Schools in Sector 16, 19 and 35.

The mails came from a gmail account around 8 am, when most schools were opening for the day. It warned that bombs were set to go off at 1.11 pm. While the specific wording of the emails varied, several school heads confirmed the senders claimed to be “Khalistani terrorists” though police maintained that this is yet to be confirmed.

UT senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kanwardeep Kaur said the matter is under investigation and a case has been registered under Sections 113(3) (terrorist acts, abetment/conspiracy), 351(4) (criminal intimidation) and 62 (punishment for attempt) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Information technology (IT) Act at the Sector 17 police station.

As a precautionary measure, regular deployment of police will be ensured in and around all schools from January 29, to prevent any untoward incident.

This is not the first time that such hoax bomb threats have been received in the tricity. On January 6, similar threats were sent to the District Courts Complex in Sector 43. The Punjab and Haryana high court and Nexus Elante mall had received threats before this. However, police are unable to make arrests in most of such cases. As per the officials, such users are mostly located outside India and can use tools to mask their IP address and avoid detection.