Bomb Squad outside Sanskriti School, Chanakyapuri, in New Delhi, on Wednesday.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Wednesday was put through a test when it had to rush their dog and bomb squads to more than 100 schools which received a bomb threat via e-mail.
As schools scampered to bring the students of safety, the city police too went into an overdrive after their emergency phone started ringing from 6 am with bomb threat reports – a situation that lasted till 3 pm.
Senior police officers with dog and bomb squads had to rush from one school to another and there was no time to be wasted.
"Every district has its own one bomb squad and one dog squad. If needed, we take help from other districts. But today the situation was totally different as all the schools of Delhi in different 15 districts received bomb threats through e-mail," a senior police officer said, who wished not to be named.
Another senior police officer, who requested anonymity, said that they did face a bit of a problem in moving the dog and bomb squad immediately, but they managed the situation.
"There are almost 20 members in the dog and bomb squad. We divided those members according to the call. We also directed them to make no hurry," said the officer.
Chaos reined across the city schools Wednesday morning with parents rushing and children, some of them crying, running out of classes. All that amid blaring sirens of fire tenders and sniffer dogs rootling around.
Only an hour or so after they had dropped off their wards at schools, parents received messages from school authorities about receiving an e-mail about there being a bomb in the premises.
Authorities swung into action by sending fire tenders, ambulances, and police vans to be on stand by outside schools and bomb detection and disposal squads searching inside.
According to police, 22 schools received bomb threat in Shahdara, 18 in south Delhi, 21 in west Delhi, 24 in east Delhi, 30 schools in southwest, 16 schools in the outer Delhi.