A private school in Gerugambakkam near Porur, Chennai, and its branch in Coimbatore received a bomb hoax email late on Sunday night, March 3. This is the second time the school received a threat in the last four days and the second time the Coimbatore institution received it in the last three days, according to a report by The New Indian Express.
As per the police, an email was sent to the Porur school on the night of March 3. Early Monday morning, March 4, when the authorities saw the email, they alerted the Mangadu police which sent a bomb squad along with sniffer dogs to conduct checks.
"Checks were conducted before the students started coming in and the threat turned out to be a hoax. Some of the students who came to the school with their parents were sent home. Those who had their examinations were made to wait in the playground. Both Class XI and XII exams were conducted without any problem,” a police source told TNIE.
On Friday, March 1, the Chennai school had received a bomb hoax through email. A case was registered by the cyber crime wing of Avadi police.
A senior police officer said, "Both emails were sent by the same person using the same email service. Since it is an ongoing investigation, we cannot reveal the name of the email service. A probe is on to trace the accused."
Police said the email service used by the sender in this case was end-to-end encrypted and used virtual private networks, which made it difficult to track the sender. According to media reports, after the Tamil Nadu police highlighted the issue, the Union IT Ministry was planning to block the email service in the country.
The private school's branch near Vadavalli in Coimbatore also received a bomb threat mail on Sunday night, March 3. The bomb squad declared the threat a hoax on Monday morning, March 4.
A senior police officer said that the cases would be transferred to CB-CID and are awaiting an official order, added TNIE.
It may be noted that on Friday, a bomb hoax email was also sent to the secretariat. A case was registered and an inquiry led the police to the sender, Prakash (47) from Cuddalore. Police found that he was psychologically disturbed.
