Bengal man held for hoax bomb threat emails to Gujarat schools, courts

The suspect’s arrest marks a major breakthrough in maintaining public safety and digital security, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch said in a statement

Published on: Mar 3, 2026, 21:48:25 IST

By Maulik Pathak, Ahmedabad

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The Ahmedabad Crime Branch and Cyber Crime Unit have arrested the prime suspect behind a wave of hoax bomb threats that targeted schools and courts across Gujarat last month, police said on Tuesday.

The accused, identified by the police as Sourav Biswas, was apprehended in West Bengal during a joint operation and brought to Ahmedabad. (Image: Ahmedabad crime branch)

The accused, identified by the police as Sourav Biswas, was apprehended in West Bengal during a joint operation and brought to Ahmedabad. He was produced before a city court on Tuesday and remanded in police custody, a statement by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch said.

“This operation marks a major breakthrough in maintaining public safety and digital security,” it said.

The arrest follows a chaotic period in February when coordinated threat emails triggered mass evacuations. On 17 February, at least six district and sessions courts in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Rajkot, Valsad and Mehsana cleared after bomb threat emails were received. Bomb disposal squads and dog units searched the premises but did not find any suspicious item.

Just a day earlier, 39 schools - 19 in Vadodara and the rest in Ahmedabad – were targeted, forcing thousands of students onto the streets. No explosives were found in any instance.

Investigative teams are interrogating the suspect to uncover the motive, potential accomplices, and technical methods used to bypass security protocols. Biswas used sophisticated methods, including a VPN (virtual private network), to conceal his identity, the police statement said.

The operation was conducted under the supervision of Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik and the leadership of joint commissioner of police (crime branch) Sharad Singhal, it added.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More

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