At once, 4 places get ‘hoax’ bomb threats

Bhopal: A university in Nishatpura, AIIMS in Bag Sewania, GPO in Royal Market in Kotwali, and the Regional Passport Office received bomb threats in the early hours of Monday morning. Cops later called it a hoax.The managements of the four institutions received a threatening email warning that they planted twin IEDs containing cyanide gas that would simultaneously blast at 12:15 pm. Following the threat, panic gripped all four campuses, and police teams were immediately deployed. The content of the email sent to all 4 institutions was identical. The email also warned authorities to evacuate people from their premises by 11:00 am.Search operations were carried out at all 4 locations between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm by the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) and dog squad. According to police, as soon as the threat was reported, SHOs of Nishatpura, Bag Sewania, Kotwali and MP Nagar rushed to the spots under their respective jurisdictions. The campuses of the university, the academic block and medical college at AIIMS, the GPO in Royal Market, as well as the Regional Passport Office, were evacuated for security reasons. Entry of outsiders into the premises was completely restricted.Notably, this was the 2nd time in the past 15 days that the university was targeted. Earlier, on Feb 19, a similar threatening email was received. A senior police officer said an investigation was launched based on the email ID and IP address, and the Cyber-Crime Branch was working to trace the sender. He said that the bomb threats sent via email were investigated with the help of the dog squad and were found to be false. Preliminary findings indicated that similar emails were sent across India. The origin of the emails was being traced, and the Cyber-Crime Branch was included in the probe.Police commissioner Sanjay Kumar confirmed that threat emails were received. The emails had similar content, which suggested that they were sent by the same person. Police were working to trace the source of the emails, cops added.