15 schools receive bomb threat

BENGALURU: At least 15 schools in Bengaluru received a bomb threat via emails on Friday, which later turned out to be a hoax, city police said.

Bomb detection squads which were rushed to six schools found no explosives during the search operations, a senior police officer privy to the development said. “Many other schools in and around Bengaluru realised that they had received similar mails after news of the threat became public,” the police officer said, seeking anonymity.

Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said the calls appeared to be a conspiracy to disrupt peace in the state. “Karnataka is a progressive state and some elements are repeatedly trying to tarnish this image. Police officials have been instructed to consider these cases seriously,” he said.

Police said the emails to schools began arriving around 11 am. While the origin of the mail is suspected to be in the US,complete details will be available only after a probe into the matter, they added.

“We have written to Google since their platform was used for sending these mails. We will get more information once they respond,” additional commissioner of police (Bengaluru,

East) Subramanyeshwara Rao said.

“The mail was sent multiple times to the schools on the email ids available on their website. Some schools received as many as 140 emails and all the mails had similar content,” a second officer said, seeking anonymity.

A student from St Vincent Pallotti School, Hennur, said they were asked to evacuate the premises during the lunch break. “We didn’t know what was happening. We were asked to evacuate,” the student said.

Delhi Public School (Bengaluru East) principal Manila Carvalho said classes were suspended immediately after the school received the mail.