NEW DELHI: Udyog Bhawan and Nirman Bhawan, two key government buildings in central Delhi, were the target of hoax bomb threat emails on Friday.
The emails, which contained threats related to suicide Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), were reportedly sent to a senior bureaucrat at the Ministry of Heavy Industries, according to officials.
The emails were received at 6:49 am. The fire department officials said they were alerted to the threat at 1:01 pm. Upon receiving the warning, they immediately dispatched teams to the locations.
The threat, which instructed the evacuation of the buildings by 3:15 pm, was flagged by the offices of the Secretary of Heavy Industries at Udyog Bhawan and officials at Nirman Bhawan to relevant security agencies, including Delhi Police, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Delhi Fire Services (DFS). A thorough search operation was carried out at both locations, lasting for approximately four hours, but no suspicious objects were found.
The operation involved a dozen sniffer dogs and four bomb detection and disposal teams from CISF, Delhi Police and Delhi Metro. Authorities are suspecting that the hoax may have been sent from Amsterdam.