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The InOrbit mall, a prominent shopping destination in Vashi area of Navi Mumbai received a bomb threat on Saturday afternoon, creating panic amongst weekend shoppers who were hastily evacuated from the premises by police following the threatening message sent on the mall’s email.
“Hello there, I planted bombs in the building every person inside the building will be kill (sic)”, read an email received by the InOrbit at 11:59 AM, as per the police.
A senior police official was evacuated immediately and a thorough search of the premises was conducted by the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, ATS officials, Fire Brigade personnel, and police personnel assisted by a dog squad.
However, the bomb threat turned out to be a hoax as no explosives or suspicious items were found, the official said.
“The search was called off at around 2:50 PM, following which the mall was reopened for people at around 3 PM,” he said, adding the police are investigating the source of the e-mail and trying to identify its sender.
In a related incident, two renowned malls in Gurugram and Noida were evacuated on Saturday morning after they received bomb threat emails, which later turned out to be hoaxes as nothing suspicious was found following anti-sabotage checks, the police said.
The bomb threats to DLF Mall of India in Sector 18 of Noida and Ambience Mall in Gurugram came over three months after similar threats were sent to multiple schools in the National Capital Region (NCR).
In a statement, Gurugram police said the Ambience Mall management received a bomb threat email at 9.27 am on Saturday, stating that “every person inside the building will be killed, none of you will escape.”
“You deserve death. I planted the bombs in the building because I hate my life. The people behind this attack are Paige and Nora,” read the email sent from hiddenbones101@gmail.com.
Bomb and dog squad teams were rushed to the spot and the search operation lasted for four-and-half hours, it said.
In the afternoon, Assistant Commissioner of Police, DLF (Gurugram), Vikas Kaushik said, “The search operation at the Ambience Mall is over and nothing has been found. We are now searching for the accused who sent the threat email.”
Similarly, a bomb threat was received by the DLF Mall of India in Noida on Saturday.
Noida Additional Commissioner of Police (law and order) Shivhari Meena said searches were conducted at the mall following information of a bomb threat but nothing objectionable was found and the email appears to be a hoax.
However, the mall authorities, in a statement around 1.35 pm, said the “activity” was a security drill conducted in collaboration with Noida authorities.
Several people at the mall were evacuated and movie screenings were halted midway as security checks began.
(With inputs from agencies)
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