At least 10 major hotels in the capital of Uttar Pradesh received bomb threats via email on Sunday. The message demanded a ransom of USD 55,000 (Rs 4,624,288), warning that explosions would occur if the demand was 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.
Brajesh Kumar, a manager at one of the hotels, informed PTI, “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.
Hotels in Tirupati receive hoax bomb threats
In the past three days, about six hotels in Tirupati town received hoax bomb threats via email, according to police reports on Sunday. Upon receiving these complaints, authorities promptly evacuated the affected hotels and conducted thorough searches with 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 said.
This incident comes amid a spate of hoax bomb threats directed at Indian airlines in the past two weeks, with over 350 flights affected, primarily due to threats made through social media. In recent months, various schools, malls, and other establishments in the Delhi-NCR region have also received threatening emails, most of which were later determined to be hoaxes.