The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Bomb hoax in five city schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 16, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Bomb hoax in five city schools

Staff Reporter

Parents panic, rush to take children home

UNDER THE SCANNER: Members of a bomb disposal squad checking the lunch bags of children at Assumption School in Rajajinagar II Block in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Bangalore: Anonymous calls about explosives being planted on their campus caused panic in two schools in the city on Tuesday. The anxiety spread to three other schools located in the vicinity.

The first to get a call was Assumption School in Rajajinagar 2nd Block around 8.30 a.m. just before the morning assembly of students. A clerk in the school office received a call that three bombs were placed on the campus and they would explode at 9 a.m.

The school authorities called the city police who rushed the bomb disposal squad to the spot. The police team with tracker dogs searched the school premises for 90 minutes before concluding that the call was a hoax.

Even as this search was on, the police teams were rushed to Anupama School in Basaveshwaranagar, which received a similar call around 10 a.m.

In both the campuses, teachers made the children come out of the building and later helped vacate the compound. Anxious parents, alerted by school authorities, turned up to pick up their children.

Meanwhile, there were reports that three other schools in Srirampuram received anonymous calls.

These were the Sevashram School, Pawan School and Gandhi School. The city police have been coping with several such calls ever since the serial blasts in Delhi. A senior police officer said: "We cannot afford to take any chance, especially when thousands of children are involved.

"We have to search the campuses before coming to any conclusion about the authenticity of such calls." The police have asked school authorities to avoid causing panic among teachers and students.

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