Now, Delhi colleges get bomb threat e-mails

New Delhi, May 23

Over a dozen colleges including Delhi University’s prestigious Lady Sri Ram (LSR) College, Hansraj College and Ramjas College received bomb threat e-mails on Thursday, officials said, a day after a similar threat sent alarm bells ringing in the North Block.

A Delhi Fire Service (DFS) official said they first received a call at 4.38 pm about the bomb threat at LSR College and two fire tenders were pressed into service. Later, other colleges also made the call to authorities.

The local police, a bomb disposal squad, a bomb detection team arrived at the LSR College along with a dog squad and conducted searches but nothing suspicious was found, the official said.

LSR principal Suman Sharma told PTI the entire campus had been sanitised. “We received the bomb threat e-mail in the afternoon today. Immediately, the police were informed and they sent a bomb (disposal) squad. The search operation went on for 2 to 3 hours and the entire campus has been sanitised,” Sharma said.

According to a police officer, along with LSR over a dozen other colleges in Delhi received a similar kind of threat as the sender marked them in CC of the e-mail. These colleges include — Hansraj College, Gargi College, Ramjas College, Zakir Husain College, Indraprastha College For Women, Lady Irwin College, Kirori Mal College, Bhaskaracharya College, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Sri Venkateswara College, and PGDAV College.

Apart from DU colleges, Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research University, School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), among other state universities also received the threat.

The officer said all the college campuses were being searched but nothing suspicious had been recovered. Lady Sri Ram was the first college to make the PCR call and informed the Fire Department about the e-mail. Later, other colleges also informed the local police, the officer said. Over the past few weeks, bomb threat emails have been received by many establishments in the Capital, including schools and hospitals. Delhi’s Chacha Nehru Hospital received a bomb threat on April 30 while more than 150 schools got threats from a Russia-based mailing service company on May 1.

Twenty hospitals, the IGI Airport and the Northern Railways’ CPRO office in Delhi received bomb threats through e-mails from a Cyprus-based mailing service company on May 12.

Seven Delhi hospitals and the Tihar Jail received bomb threats from the same Cyprus-based mailing service company on May 14. The Delhi Police is conducting investigations into the e-mail bomb threats.