‘Blast at Parliament’ threats to 13 Delhi schools declared hoax

The threats were hoaxes, but raised concerns over safety and academic disruption.

Atleast 13 private schools in the Capital allegedly received bomb threats on Monday morning, prompting the managements to get the premises evacuated and deploy bomb disposal teams, police said. The threats, however, were proved to be hoax after explosive detection.

Bomb disposal squad and police team outside a school in Rajendra Nagar. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

A senior police officer said an email was sent by a username “zachary jenkins” to 13 schools, stating “Delhi will become Khalistan in the memory of Afzal Guru”. The email, signed by “Khalistan National Army” also warned of an attack on Parliament later this week.

“There will be a blast in Parliament on February 13 at 1.11pm. Punjab is Khalistan,” it read, the officer said.

Tania Joshi, principal of The Indian School, said they received the email just as the routine classes had started. Police and parents were immediately alerted and the school building as well as the adjoining field were evacuated, Joshi said, adding that the school was dispersed an hour earlier than usual.

“Although authorities later declared the premises safe and permitted the resumption of normal school activities, we still informed parents and gave them the option to pick up their children if they wished. Normally, the school dispersal time is 1.30pm, but re-scheduled it to 12.30,” Joshi said.

At Rohini’s Venkateshwar School, it was declared an off. “The threats have become so frequent that everyone, including students and teachers are aware of the standard response to the situation, but the disruption that is caused to academic routine is concerning,” principal Namita Singhal said.

“Though we found nothing, but there was panic among parents, so we declared it an off day,” said Singhal. “With exams just around the corner and internal assessments and practicals underway, we had to pause everything because student safety is our first priority. However, this leads to significant losses in meeting academic targets. It is unfortunate that over the past one-and-a-half years, bomb threats have become routine.”

Commenting on the frequency of bomb threats that are later declared hoaxes, Bharat Arora, president of the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools, said, “While authorities have taken steps in the past by issuing SOPs, the core issue remains unresolved. The authorities need to address this problem at the grassroots level and to include private school stakeholders in finding a long-term solution.”