Gujarat: Three schools in Vadodara declare holiday after bomb threat; turns out to be hoax

VADODARA: Three schools of an education society in Gujarat's Vadodara city declared a holiday on Friday after one of them received a bomb threat through an email, which eventually turned out to be a hoax, officials said. Searches were conducted in all three schools after the threat mail, but nothing suspicious was found, they said.

According to an official, the Vadodara police swung into action on Friday morning after the principal of Navrachana International School, situated on Bhayli-Vasna Road in the city, informed the control room about the bomb threat she received on the official email of the school.

"Since there are two more Navrachana schools in Sama area of the city, police along with Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS), dog squad and cyber crime branch officials started an extensive search operation in these three schools," Assistant Commissioner of Police G B Bambhania told reporters.

The email, sent from an unknown ID, only claimed that a bomb with a timer had been placed in the drainage line of Navrachana school, he said. "Since there are three Navrachana schools, our teams immediately reached there and launched a search operation to locate the bomb. The school management declared a holiday in these schools in view of the threat and subsequent search operation", the ACP said.

The search operation lasted for three hours and nothing suspicious was found. The police's cyber cell will conduct further investigation and try to trace the sender of the email through the IP address, Bambhania added.

Biju Kurien, administrator of Navrachana School in Sama, confirmed that all the three schools had declared a holiday for the day in view of the bomb threat. "All the parents were informed in advance about our decision. Police then reached here and conducted a thorough search of the premises but nothing suspicious was found," Kurien told reporters.