20 Delhi hospitals, IGI Airport, Northern Railways’ CPRO office receive bomb threats
New Delhi: Twenty hospitals, the IGI Airport and the Northern Railways’ CPRO office in Indian capital New Delhi have received bomb threats through emails, 11 days after similar messages to more than 150 schools in Delhi-NCR sparked a scare of unprecedented scale.
According to Kashmir Media Service, while threats to schools were received from a Russia-based mailing service, Sunday’s threats to hospitals and two other installations were received from a Europe-based mailing service company ‘beeble.com’, said an official if the Indian government.
According to a Delhi based police officer, the e-mail was sent to one hospital with copies marked to others with the same content. He further said it was generated from sender id “courtgroup03@beeble.com”, which is being verified and cyber officials are trying to locate the IP address.
The content of the letter read, “I have placed explosive devices inside your building. They will explode in the following hour. This isn’t a threat, you have a few hours to disarm the bomb or else the blood of innocent people inside the building will be on your hands. “The group called ‘Court’ is behind this massacre,” it said.
The Delhi Police suspects the email was sent with the help of a VPN (virtual private network) or proxy server so that the IP address could not be traced. The Delhi Police Special Cell is likely to file an FIR and conduct the probe, the officer said.
Police received information regarding the threat from Brurari Hospital at 3 pm after which complaints came in from several other hospitals across the city and police teams were dispatched but “nothing suspicious” has been found yet, officials said.
The bomb threats were reported from Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal-3, Burari Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, Janakpuri Super Specialty Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Dabri’s Dada Dev Hospital and Aruna Asaf Ali Government Hospital in Civil Lines, a senior Delhi Fire Services official said.
The Guru Nanak Dev Eye Hospital, Gramin Swastha Prashikshan Sansthan in Najafgarh, ILBS in Vasant Kunj are among the hospitals which were also checked by the local police as the emails were sent to them too, a police officer said.
The CPRO building located at State Entry Road in Connaught Place was also checked but nothing suspicious was found, the officer said. At some of the hospitals, the checks were underway till late night, he said.
“The Security Operations Control Centre at IGI Airport has received a threat email concerning an explosive device within the premises. Enhanced security protocols are now in effect, and safety measures have been intensified. Legal action has been initiated. No suspicious items have been found as of now,” Deputy Commission of Police (IGI) Usha Rangnani said.
The officer said that the airport authorities received a threat email at 6 pm.
Security has been beefed up in all the hospitals in the city and additional police force deployment was made at the airport, however, nothing suspicious was so far recovered from any of the locations so far, they said.
After a call regarding from Burari Hospital, local police, bomb squad and dog squad were rushed to the spot, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) M K Meena said.
“Teams are checking the hospitals and other institutions which received threatening emails and nothing suspicious was found so far.” a statement issued here at around 3 pm.
it is worth to be mentioned here that on May 1, over 150 schools in Delhi-NCR received an identical threat email claiming that explosives had been planted on their premises, triggering massive evacuations and searches. The authorities later declared it a hoax.
The Delhi Police’s anti-terror unit special cell traced the domain of e-mails to Russia and it is suspected to have been formed with the help of the dark web — an encrypted online content that allows individuals to hide their identity and location from others.
