New Delhi:

At least six schools in Delhi received a bomb threat on Friday via email, the second such incident this week. The police have not found anything suspicious yet, officials said.

Delhi Public School in East of Kailash, Salwan School, Modern School, and Cambridge School, were among some of the institutions that received the threat. This has prompted the authorities to send students back home. The schools have also sent messages to guardians asking them not to send their children to classes today.

A copy of the email accessed by NDTV shows that it says there are “several explosives in the schools’ premises”. According to the sender, there is a “secret dark web” group that is involved in the alleged bomb blasts.

“I am sure that you all do not check your students’ bags frequently when they enter the school premises. The bombs are powerful enough to destroy the buildings and harm people. December 13 and 14, both days can be the day your school will face a bomb blast. On December 14, there is a scheduled parent-teacher meeting in some of the schools mentioned. Indeed it is a good chance and an advantage for the bombs to detonate,” the email reads.

It also asked the authorities to reply to the email to know the sender’s “demands”.

The fire department, police, and bomb detection teams, along with dog squads, have reached the schools and are conducting checks, officials said. The Delhi Police is also investigating the IP address and looking for the sender of the email.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Chief Arvind Kejriwal reacted to the bomb threats, calling it “extremely serious and worrying”.

“This is the second time in this week that Delhi schools have received bomb threats, which is extremely serious and worrying. If this continues, how badly will it affect the children? What will happen to their studies?” he said.

On December 9, over 40 schools in the national capital received a similar bomb threat via email. The police later declared it as a bomb hoax.

The email, sent at 11:38 pm on a Sunday claimed that multiple “small” bombs had been planted inside the school buildings. The sender also demanded $30,000 to defuse bombs.

“It will not cause very much damage to the building, but many people will be injured when the bombs detonate. You all deserve to suffer and lose limbs,” the hoax email read.

Mumbai:

A minor has been taken into custody by the Mumbai Police over a series of bomb threats being issued to various airlines since Monday, leading to some flights being diverted, including one to a remote airport in Canada. Police said the threats were allegedly issued because the boy wanted to frame one of his friends, with whom he had a dispute over money. 

The 17-year-old boy, a school dropout from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, and his father had been summoned by the Mumbai Police on Tuesday. While he has been taken into custody and is being taken to a remand home, his father is still being questioned, police sources said. The teenager allegedly created a handle on X in the name of the friend with whom he had a dispute and posted bomb threats from it.

At least 19 threats have been issued, starting with four on Monday, and the Mumbai Police has registered three first information reports (FIRs). The teenager has currently been taken into custody in connection with the first FIR, which is about Monday’s threats. 

Police said that, on Monday, the boy had issued hoax threats to four flights, three of which were on  international routes. Of these, two were delayed, including Air India flight AI 119 from Mumbai to New York, which was diverted to New Delhi, and one had to be cancelled.

At least seven flights were impacted on Tuesday, including Air India flight AI 127 from Delhi to Chicago, which was diverted to the Iqaluit airport in Canada. IndiGo flight 6E 98 from Damman in Saudi Arabia to Lucknow made an emergency landing in Jaipur and threats were received by Air India Express, Akasa Air and Alliance Air as well. 

Tuesday’s threats were issued from an X handle which began posting on the social media platform in the afternoon.

The hoax calls continued on Wednesday, with a New Delhi-Bengaluru Akasa Air flight (QP 1335) returning to the capital and Indigo’s Mumbai-Delhi flight 6E 651 being diverted to Ahmedabad. Five other flights also received bomb threats, including two from SpiceJet.

Parliamentary Panel Meet

The Delhi Police has also registered several FIRs in connection with the threats and the issue came up in a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on transport on Wednesday. 

Sources said aviation officials had told the MPs who were part of the panel that they had a few “critical leads” and some suspects had been identified.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu also held a meeting with officials from his department and aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Senior officials from an airline had told NDTV that such hoax calls have a strong impact on finances but they have no option but to take them seriously.

Mumbai:

More than 60 establishments in Mumbai, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), prominent hospitals and colleges received emails threatening bomb blasts, following which searches were carried out although nothing suspicious was found in them, a police official said on Tuesday.

The emails were received on Monday and Tuesday from a single mail id, he said.

“The emails received on Tuesday were similar to those received on Monday, which said that there was a bomb threat to prominent private, state and civic-run hospitals and colleges across the city,” he said.

As an investigation was underway, similar bomb threat emails were received by the BMC and other establishments, he said.

During the probe, the Mumbai police conducted security checks of those establishments and later it came to light that somebody played a mischief as nothing suspicious was found at all these places, he said.

Process to register a case against unidentified persons is underway at the Azad Maidan police station, he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)