At least 18 Noida schools receive bomb threat emails; police say hoax

At least 18 schools in Noida received bomb threat emails during board exams; police confirm messages are a hoax and investigations are ongoing

At least 18 Noida schools in received bomb threat emails on Thursday during board examinations, police said, adding that the messages were found to be a hoax.

Bomb threat emails hit 18 schools in Gautam Budh Nagar. (Representative photo)

The school management alerted the police after receiving the threat emails on their official email IDs.

Multiple teams from the bomb squad, dog squad, and anti-sabotage check (ASC) team, accompanied by senior police officers, carried out search operations within the school premises.

“Multiple schools received bomb threat mails in Gautam Budh Nagar on Thursday. Following the information about the threat emails, multiple teams were dispatched and extensive searches in all schools were conducted,” Gautam Budh Nagar’s additional commissioner of police (Law and Order) Rajeev Narayan Mishra said.

“Nothing suspicious has been found and prima facie the emails fall in the hoax category. However, our cyber team is checking from where the mails were generated,” he added.

The Addl CP said that the checking did not affect students who were appearing for the exams.

“Four schools in Central Noida, nine schools in Noida, and five in Greater Noida received threat emails early Thursday morning,” a senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, told HT.

“Between 8 am and 9 am, we received back-to-back calls regarding the threat mails. Additional force was called from police lines and equally distributed to all schools,” said the officer, adding that, on the pretext of a mock drill and routine checking, police conducted checks at all schools while exams were underway.

Police have registered a case at the Cybercrime Branch police station, and further investigation is underway.