Bengaluru schools next to receive ‘hoax’ bomb threats after Delhi schools

Bengaluru: At least eight schools in different parts of the Bengaluru city on Tuesday received a bomb threat email that was later declared a 'hoax' by the city police.

Bangalore Scottish School, Bhavan Bangalore Press School, Chitrakoota School, Deeksha High School, Edify School, Gangothri International Public School, Giridhanva School and Jain Heritage School were among those that received the threat email at 12.20 am, well-placed sources said.

“I have placed explosive devices inside your building,” a copy of the email accessed by DH read. “They will explode in the following hours. This isn’t a threat, you have a few hours to disarm the bomb or else the blood of innocent people inside of the building will be on your hands.”

The sender claimed that a group called “Court is behind this massacre”.

The school administration saw the email on Tuesday morning and informed the police. A search was immediately launched and the police declared the email a hoax after no explosives were found.

“Cases would be booked at respective police stations once formal complaints are received” a senior police officer told DH. “It was a hoax email. It will be investigated.”

A well-placed source revealed that the emails were sent from an address registered with beeble.com — an end-to-end encrypted email provider based in Nicosia, Cyprus.

"When the email IDs were observed [in past instances], it came to light that Virtual Private Network (VPN) and proxy servers were used," Bengaluru police commissioner Dayananda said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

"Hence, it was a challenge during investigations. However, efforts were on to trace it with the help of Central agencies and Interpol."

Interestingly, on December 1, 2023, 70 schools in Bengaluru city and rural limits received bomb threats via email, which were declared a hoax. At the time, the emails were sent through two addresses registered with beeble.com. Investigators were yet to trace the origins of the emails.