Maharashtra authorities placed several cities on high alert after emails threatened bomb explosions at district courts, including court complexes in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Pune, Nagpur, Beed, Hingoli, Nanded, Satara and Parbhani. The threats also referred to attacks at Metro stations on “9.11” and a November 27 programme by singer Diljit Dosanjh at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse.
In Mumbai, the emails named the Mazgaon, Dindoshi and Esplanade courts. The Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, accompanied by sniffer dogs, searched multiple court premises during the afternoon, but found nothing suspicious, a police officer told the Times of India. Mumbai Police said it was registering a first information report against the unidentified sender or senders.
The city’s crime branch and cyber cell have been assigned to trace the source of the emails. Police action has involved searches of court buildings and heightened security measures at locations identified in the messages. The threats were sent to courts in different districts at intervals of about 30 minutes, according to police sources in Palghar.
The two buildings housing the Thane district court were evacuated and thoroughly checked, Balasaheb Patil, deputy commissioner of police for Zone 1, said. Similar emails received by courts in Thane, Hingoli and Beed prompted evacuations, while extensive searches continued into the evening at the Shivajinagar court complex in Pune.
The latest alert follows a similar email received by the office of Mumbai mayor Ritu Tawde on October 23. That message warned of attacks at the mayor’s office, the American School in Bandra Kurla Complex, actor Amitabh Bachchan’s residence in Juhu and the Diljit Dosanjh concert scheduled for later this month. The latest message allegedly referred to concealing an improvised explosive device inside an iPhone.
The incidents have placed court complexes, which handle daily public transactions involving litigants, lawyers, staff and security personnel, at the centre of a coordinated police response. The reference to Metro stations has also widened the potential public-safety concern beyond judicial premises, although the supplied report does not indicate that any explosive device has been found.
Searches and investigations were continuing across the affected districts. Mumbai Police’s crime branch and cyber cell are pursuing the email trail, while local police units are conducting checks and managing evacuations and access restrictions at the named court complexes.
