Rumours lead to panic among parents

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 12

Panic gripped the city after 268 cartridges were recovered from the road alongside the boundary wall of Kundan Vidya Mandir (KVM) School in the Civil Lines area here today. Bittu, a school bus driver, spotted a polythene bag containing the cartridges at around 9 am. He informed Navita Puri, Principal of the school, and she further called up the police.

The police, along with a bomb disposal squad, reached the spot and started checking the school campus. A police team, led by Ravneesh Chaudhary, Assistant Commissioner of Police (North), carried out a search on the campus and its adjoining areas while the Division No. 8 police searched the Arya College campus, located near the school.

Students and their parents were not aware of what was going on in the school till 11:30 am. Meanwhile, some local channels flashed news that ammunition had been recovered near KVM School. The photographs of the bomb squad personnel clicked by commuters also went viral on WhatsApp.

Rumours of “bomb recovery” and “bomb explosion” went viral on the social media site, leading to panic among the parents. Soon, a large number of parents gathered at the entrance to the school.

The parents demanded early leave for their children. Navita Puri, Principal, sent a text message to the parents, requesting them not to panic. She told them about the recovery of cartridges outside the school.

But the anxious parents went on the rampage as the Principal denied early leave to the students. Some parents even scaled the boundary wall to fetch their children.

Finally, the Principal declared leave for the day half an hour before the scheduled time to pacify the parents.

Navita Puri said: “Rumours of bomb explosion were spread by some mischievous persons, which led to a chaos on the school campus. But, with the help of the police, the dispersal of students was carried out peacefully”.

“The anxious parents relied on rumours, not on us. It is a sad state of affairs that parents did not cooperate with us in tough times,” said Navita Puri.

“I have received a text message through a WhatsApp group that terrorists have attacked KVM School. I have tuned the television on and found that a local news channel was telecasting the breaking news about the school. I left for the school immediately,” said the mother of a student.

The rumours brought alive the memories of terror attack at an Army School at Peshawar in Pakistan and the incident of Udhampur terror attack, in which the militants had taken three persons hostage, adding to parents’ anxiety. 

Abandoned bag adds to panic

A bomb hoax created panic among the residents living on the Arya School road near Dahmohria Bridge in the afternoon. A few residents found an abandoned bag outside a defunct ATM booth. They raised the alarm and the police reached the spot. The police cordoned off the area and asked the shopkeepers to shut down their shops. With the help of an anti-bomb squad, the police opened the bag and found that it contained old cloths. The police suspect that it was the handiwork of mischievous element as the two electric wires were hanging out of the bag.