Chennai Airport, two schools receive hoax bomb threat

CHENNAI: In the latest in a series of such incidents, the Chennai airport and two private schools in the city received hoax bomb threats, which kept officials on their toes on Wednesday.

An anonymous email that was sent to the Kolkata airport claimed that explosives in powder form were planted on a domestic aircraft that is to depart from Chennai, and added that it would explode soon.

The Kolkata airport authorities immediately alerted their counterparts in Chennai, and an emergency meeting was held in the airport. The security personnel tightened the procedures and checked all aircraft and also passengers that departed from Chennai. The passengers were asked to appear for an extra check and all powder items were banned from being taken in the flight.

Finally, the officials confirmed it was a hoax call but the passengers and the flights are being checked thoroughly.

Following the precautionary measures, flights to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Shirdi were delayed by up to one hour.

Meanwhile, at least two prominent private schools in the city – one in Mylapore and the other in Santhome - received bomb threats on Wednesday morning through e-mail, which turned out to be a hoax.

Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) of the city police swept the premises after an alert from the school authorities. Police sources said that the cybercrime wing has begun investigations to trace the sender. Sources said that both the threat emails were sent from the same mail ID during the early hours of Wednesday.

In the beginning of this month, the city police had said that they were coordinating with international agencies to probe the frequent instances of hoax bomb threats. A standard operating procedure (SOP) has been issued to the schools to deal with the hoax bomb threats, police said.