200 Schools Receive Bomb Threat In West Bengal; Police In A Tizzy

Bomb threat calls targeted a handful of schools in West Bengal, after which the police confirmed that the threats were false.

What Happened? 

An email was received at 12.28 a.m. in the intervening night between Sunday and Monday (April 8, 2024), by a user called “doll”, with the email ID of the name, ‘happyhotdog101’, threatening to have bombs placed at schools. 

Screenshots of the mail have been shared by more than a list of 90 schools. It has gone viral although the actual message has not been shared. It is believed that the sender had threatened that bombs would be set off when the students would arrive on Tuesday morning. 

Till late that evening, neither the Calcutta Police nor the West Bengal Police issued any official statement on this case. The schools in either of the cities would also not go on record about the threat.

According to police sources, the email was generated by an account linked to a Latvia-based email service provider, which was conceived in 2018 and started its operations in 2022.

Later, a senior police official commented on the matter saying that someone had deliberately sent the email to create tensions before the elections.

In a post on social media, the city police confirmed the threats were ‘hoax’.

“It has come to our attention that an email threatening the presence of bombs has been received by some schools in the city. We want to assure you that this email is a hoax and there is no credible threat to any school,” the Kolkata Police posted on social media.

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What Action Has Been Taken? 

The police were contacted as soon as the mail was read by school authorities, post which the cyber crime cell tried to identify the sender via the IP address of the email.

A senior police officer said, “We are monitoring the situation and verifying the emails. The cyber cell is working on it. A case has been registered and we are probing the matte. Primarily, it seems like a prank, but the investigation is at an early stage, and nothing can be said now,” 

According to the police, the mail threatened saying: “This message is for everyone. There are bombs outside the classroom. The bombs will go off tomorrow morning when the children are at school.”

“We understand that receiving such messages can be distressing, but please remain calm and rest assured about the safety of students. In the meantime, we urge everyone to refrain from spreading rumours or panicking. We are also in touch with the schools for any help they need,” the police said on social media. 

Has Such An Event Happened Before?

On December 1, 2023, a similar case came to light when around 68 educational institutions in Bengaluru received threatening emails from an email ID created by the same email service provider as the one in the Calcutta schools case. 

Bengaluru Police had initially suspected the email to have originated from the Czech Republic or Slovakia, but it was later traced to the same end-to-end encrypted email service provider as in this case, though the location was in Cyprus.

According to news reports, responding to the Bengaluru Police, the email sender had used a Switzerland-based Virtual Private Network, which is also known for its end-to-end encryption and focus on privacy.

However, it is not known yet whether the Calcutta Police or the Bengal Police have reached out to the email service provider to probe Monday’s threat emails.

Image Credits: Google Images