An email threatening to blow up Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s headquarters in Danapith triggered an evacuation and security search on October 27, but the response exposed delays in clearing the building and bringing specialist teams to the site, according to a report by Gujarat Samachar – Ahmedabad.
The threat email was received at the mayor’s office at 12.05 pm, after which the police commissioner’s office was informed at 2.03 pm. Details of the threat to the civic body’s headquarters emerged at 2.11 pm, the report said. The building evacuation continued until 3.45 pm.
A bomb squad from Anand reached the municipal headquarters at 5.15 pm, followed by a dog squad at 5.25 pm. The two teams completed their inspection by 5.58 pm. The report did not indicate that any explosive device was found, and described the threat as having turned out to be a rumour.
The incident has raised questions over emergency preparedness at one of Ahmedabad’s busiest civic buildings. The Danapith headquarters receives officials, municipal employees and members of the public every day, but reportedly does not have an emergency siren system. Such a system could alert people across the building simultaneously during a security or life-safety emergency and support a faster evacuation.
The reported response timeline also highlights the limited availability of specialised security resources. Ahmedabad has three bomb-squad teams, while four additional teams were called in from other locations. The city has 10 dog-squad teams, but only five are equipped to detect explosive materials, according to details cited in the report.
A police officer was quoted as saying that threats had been received simultaneously at several locations across the city. This meant that Ahmedabad’s bomb and dog squads, along with other agencies, were deployed across multiple sites. Bomb and dog squads available in nearby locations were also informed through the Director General of Police’s office and sent for inspections where required.
The episode is not being reported as an isolated warning. The municipal headquarters had allegedly received threatening emails and messages in the past as well, but the report said an emergency siren had still not been installed. That gap has renewed scrutiny of how civic institutions assess and upgrade security after repeated alerts.
For the municipal corporation, the incident involved three separate operational stages: receiving and communicating the threat, evacuating a building filled with staff and visitors, and conducting a specialist search. The time recorded between these stages shows the practical consequences of limited on-site warning infrastructure and dependence on teams travelling from outside the city.
The report identified Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation as an institution with a budget of more than Rs 18,000 crore. It also cited the city’s population as being close to one crore while describing the availability of bomb squads as inadequate for the scale of the urban area. The next steps reported are the police investigation into the threat and continued coordination among the civic body, city police and specialist response teams.
