3 courts get bomb threat emails

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police on Friday launched a search and evacuation drive at three district judge courts after the establishments received emails threatening bomb explosions on the premises, police said. The district and sessions judge courts in Cuttack, Puri and Phulbani received emails where the sender threatened to explode bombs on the court premises, causing panic among lawyers, litigants and judges. The threatening emails came less than a month after similar communications were received by authorities of district courts in Cuttack, Deogarh and Sambalpur on January 8, police said.

Odisha’s Advocate General Pitambar Acharya confirmed that the three courts have received such threatening emails and a search operation was conducted. “I appeal to all the members of the judicial fraternity not to panic over the incident and maintain calm. This may be another hoax like the previous incident,” Acharya said.

As a precautionary measure, the court campuses were evacuated. “Dog and bomb disposal teams were deployed in the search operation,” Puri SP Prateek Sigh told reporters.

In Cuttack, police ensured that the court premises was vacated. A bomb disposal squad was pressed into service and it conducted an extensive anti-sabotage check. The security personnel cordoned off the area to restrict public movement during the operation.

Police said they have started an investigation to identify the person behind sending such threatening emails to three courts simultaneously. An official in Cuttack said that no suspicious object had been found. However, search operation continued till the entire premises was fully sanitised.

Though there was no such threatening email this time for Sambalpur court, the local police have taken precautionary measures and searched the premises.

Cuttack court received such an email for the second time.