At least 10 major hotels in Lucknow, 12 in Tirupati receive bomb threats via email

At least 10 major hotels in Lucknow, 12 in Tirupati receive bomb threats via email

The email threatened that explosions would take place if a ransom demand of USD 55,000 (Rs 4,624,288) is not met. Senior police officials could not be reached for a comment despite several attempts
Published on: 

At least 10 major hotels in the Uttar Pradesh capital received bomb threats via email on Sunday. The email threatened that explosions would take place if a ransom demand of USD 55,000 (Rs 4,624,288) is not met. "Bombs are hidden in black bags on the grounds of your hotel. I want USD 55,000, or I will detonate the explosives and blood will spill everywhere. Any attempt at defusing the bombs will detonate them," read the threat email, a copy of which is with PTI.

Brajesh Kumar, a manager of one of the hotels, told PTI Videos, "We received the threat mail in the morning. As a precaution we reported the matter to the local police station and a team has come to look into the matter." "We already have systems to scan all the guests and their luggage. Even then, as a precaution we are helping the police to scan the hotel," he added.

Senior police officials could not be reached for a comment despite several attempts. Authorities have been grappling with a number of hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines during the last fortnight. In 14 days, more than 350 flights operated by Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats, most of them through social media. A number of threatening emails were received by schools, malls and other establishments in Delhi-NCR in recent months and they turned out to be hoax.

About half a dozen hotels in Tirupati town received hoax bomb email threats in the past three days, police said on Sunday. As soon as the police received such complaints, the specific hotel was evacuated and searches conducted by bomb disposal squads. "We reacted swiftly when we received complaints and our teams conducted thorough checks. But they (fake email threats) turned out to be fake. We are booking cases and investigations into these are going on," L Subbarayudu, Superintendent of Police Tirupati told PTI on Sunday. A senior police official of the district said they are investigating the cases with the help of the cyber crimes wing.

Fact Net
www.fact.net.in