HC, local courts and banks in Mumbai, Nagpur get bomb threat mails, turn out to be hoax

Mumbai: 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 hoax as no explosives were found.

As per the police's preliminary probe, multiple emails warning 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 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 blast 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.

A statement issued by two bar associations of the Bombay HC said that as the threat mails raised security concerns, the staff members of the high court were asked to move out of the premises for a search operation after.

"Due to the threat and the search operation, the regular court proceedings were disrupted for about an hour. All the courtrooms were thoroughly checked and the hearings resumed at 3 pm," Bombay Bar Association's Thakker said.

Speaking about the incident in Andheri, advocate Ali Kaashif Khan said that he had come for a hearing at the metropolitan magistrate's court.

"But the magistrate suddenly started adjourning the matter in all the cases without assigning any reason," he said.

"As we came down, all the cars were asked to move out of the court premises, and there we got to know from court police officers that a bomb squad was coming to conduct a check," he added.

The Bandra magistrate court received the bomb threat mail on its official email ID in the morning, a police official said.

"After being alerted about it, the security personnel rushed to the court and carried out a thorough search of the premises. However, no suspicious object was found during the inspection," the official of the Nirmal Nagar police station said.

The Nagpur District and Sessions Court received an email claiming bombs inside the building, prompting the police to launch a search of the premises.

District Bar Association president Roshan Bagde said the email was sent on the court's email ID in the morning, claiming that two RDX-based explosive devices would soon go off in the building, located in the Civil Lines area.

Security was then stepped up at the district court, and BDDS personnel inspected the premises.

However, nothing suspicious was found during the search, a police official said.