THE intention of the bomb hoax emails received by nearly 200 Delhi schools was to “create mass panic and disturb public order,” the Delhi Police says in an FIR registered by its Special Cell. According to an official source, who has access to the FIR, at least 125 bomb threat calls were received from different schools from 5.47 am to 2.13 pm on Wednesday. The person said that after receiving the calls, PCR vehicles were rushed to schools, and district police, BDS, MAC, Special Cell and Crime Control Room, DDMA, NDRF, Fire CATS and several other agencies were alerted. Movement of these units to the schools “resulted in massive inconvenience,” read a part of the FIR, according to the source. The officials evacuated the schools in an “elaborate exercise” and carried out anti-sabotage checks across the city, he said. The emails were apparently sent with the “conspiratorial intention of creating mass panic and to disturb public,” the source said. The FIR has been registered at Special Cell Police Station under IPC sections 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes), 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), and 120 (B) (punishment of criminal conspiracy).

 

Around 200 schools in Delhi-NCR received an identical threat email Wednesday claiming that explosives had been planted in their premises, triggering massive evacuations and searches as panic-stricken parents rushed to pick up their children. Nothing was found during searches by authorities which later declared it a mass hoax. Low attendance in Delhi schools day after bomb scare: A DAY after around 200 schools received hoax bomb emails, educational institutions in the city witnessed a slightly lower attendance, even as principals revisited evacuation plans for such emergencies in the future. Around 200 schools in Delhi-NCR on Wednesday morning received a hoax bomb threat via email which led to widespread panic among parents and students, prompting authorities to suspend classes and ask parents to pick their wards from the school.

 

Many schools on Thursday reopened to normalcy but attendance has taken a hit even in schools where the threat was not received, principals of some schools told PTI. Jyoti Arora, principal of Mount Abu School, said she revisited the school’s evacuation plan on each floor and also wrote to disaster management authorities to conduct mock drills and awareness activities for them. Sudha Acharya, principal of ITL Public School in Dwarka, said parents were still scarred and anxious about the safety of their children in schools. DELHI POLICE WRITES TO CBI SEEKING INFORMATION ON HOAX BOMB THREAT E-MAIL: The Delhi Police has written to the CBI seeking information through Interpol channels about a hoax bomb threat e-mail sent to more than 150 schools in the National Capital Region (NCR), officials said on Thursday. The agency is likely to forward the information sought by the Delhi Police to the Interpol, which in turn will send it to all the member law-enforcement agencies of the world, the officials said. The Delhi Police is investigating the IP address used to sent the e-mail, besides the sender and origin of the mail to decipher the conspiracy and motive behind the hoax threat that resulted in panic across Delhi-NCR on Wednesday.