Bomb threat mails at Bombay HC, other Mumbai courts were hoaxes
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Mumbai/Nagpur: A wave of coordinated bomb emails threatening to target the Bombay High Court, several local courts, and key financial institutions across Mumbai and Nagpur on Thursday caused widespread panic and paralysed legal proceedings.
Police and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) conducted extensive sweeps before declaring all these threats as hoaxes, as no explosives were found, PTI reported.
As per the police's preliminary probe, multiple emails that warned of "RDX blasts at 2 pm" were sent by a single user from a fake account, and its IP address was found to be located in Israel, although it is still being verified.
The emails were received on Thursday morning at the High Court, sessions court, and local courts at Mazgaon, Esplanade, Bandra, and Andheri in Mumbai, prompting the immediate evacuation of court staff and legal professionals.
The high court proceedings were halted as the BDDS swept the heritage building before declaring it clear for resumption of work.
President of the Bombay Bar Association Nitin Thakker later told reporters that all courtrooms were thoroughly searched, and hearings finally resumed at 3.00 PM.
Giving details, a senior police official said, "The Bombay HC, sessions court, and magistrate courts at Mazgaon, Esplanade, Bandra and Andheri, along with two prominent banks received bomb threat emails in the morning. The premises were immediately vacated at most of these places. The BDDS was called in, but nothing suspicious was found anywhere in the searches," a senior police official said.
"In the probe conducted so far, the bomb threat was issued by creating a fake email address. All those emails were sent from the same account, in which the sender claimed that there would be RDX blasts at 2 pm," he said.
In the investigation, the IP address of the email was found to be located in Israel. But as it is a fake account, the police are trying to ascertain the exact location of the sender, and a search for the person was underway, the official said.