Bomb threat emails trigger evacuations at 4 UP's district courts in Lucknow, Mirzapur, Varanasi and Ayodhya

LUCKNOW: Four district court complexes in Uttar Pradesh — in Lucknow, Mirzapur, Varanasi and Ayodhya — received bomb threat e-mails on Thursday, causing panic and prompting large-scale security checks across the state.

Officials said the threatening e-mails claimed that explosive devices had been planted inside the court premises. Following the alerts, local police, bomb disposal squads and dog squads rushed to the respective locations and immediately evacuated judges, lawyers, court staff and litigants as a precaution.


In Lucknow, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Zone) Vishwajeet Srivastava said the court premises were vacated around 1 pm after the bomb threat e-mail was received. “All teams, including the STF and BDDS squads, arrived on time. A thorough search was conducted, and nothing suspicious was found,” he said, adding that the situation remained under control.

In Mirzapur, Superintendent of Police Aparna Rajat Kaushik said bomb disposal squads and police teams carried out extensive checks across the court complex. “We evacuated the entire court premises and conducted a detailed search operation,” she said.

Similar precautionary evacuations and search operations were undertaken in Varanasi and Ayodhya. Sniffer dogs scanned courtrooms, chambers and sensitive areas, while entry and exit gates were barricaded to restrict movement during the operation.

Senior officials at the state police headquarters said the matter was being reviewed at the highest level. Coordination has been established with central intelligence agencies to trace the source of the e-mails and determine whether the threats were part of a coordinated attempt to create panic.

Authorities said the search operations at all four locations did not yield any suspicious objects, and further investigation into the origin of the threat e-mails is underway.