Delhi School Bomb Emails Replay a Two-Year Hoax Script

At least three Delhi schools emptied their campuses on September 15 after bomb threat emails, and fire officers later called the Army Public School scare a hoax. Police, dog squads and bomb teams swept the buildings. No device turned up.

The inboxes and the 1:11 pm clock are old. Delhi schools have been clearing halls over the same kind of mail since 2024, and the sender is still a ghost.

A Morning Sweep Across Chanakyapuri and Dhaula Kuan

A Delhi Fire Service official said the named campuses were the British School in Chanakyapuri, Army Public School in Dhaula Kuan and Sardar Patel Vidyalaya in Lodi Estate. Other schools logged the same round of mail, among them Springdales School, Sanskriti School, Air Force Bal Bharati School and Carmel Convent School. Police did not issue a closed count.

New Delhi district stations said the first calls from campuses in that district came between 10:30 am and 10:45 am. The Delhi Fire Service on 101 took a separate call from Army Public School at 11:30 am and sent a fire tender.

THE MORNING CLOCK

• 10:17 am: Threat emails reached school inboxes, according to the mail headers described to police.
• 10:30 am to 10:45 am: New Delhi district police logged calls from campuses in that district.
• 11:30 am: Delhi Fire Service heard from Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan, and rolled a tender.
• 1:05 pm: Fire officers declared the Army Public School threat a hoax after a full check.

That gap at Dhaula Kuan ran 95 minutes. A fire official said, after the search, that nothing explosive or even odd had been found on the grounds.

The bomb threat was declared hoax following thorough checking at 1.05 pm.

Delhi Fire Service official, September 15, 2026

Police said the British School mail was also a hoax once the building and the streets around it had been walked. Bomb detection teams, disposal crews and sniffer dogs worked classrooms, corridors and open ground. Parents gathered at the gates while that went on.

The Emails Named 1:11 pm and the Metro

One message used a Punjabi register and a subject line written as “B00000M|B New Dellhi Schools @ 1:11PM.” That 1:11 pm mark is not new. A February 9 wave against 10 Delhi schools used the same clock for a claimed blast.

Delhi BanayGa KHALISTAN. School @1:11pm Delhi valio Apne Bachay Bachao Koi ve Metro Yan Traina Vich 29 Sept Tak Safar na Karna, Delhi da har police thana Nishana iPhone Dhamake hon Ge.

Text of a threat email received by Delhi schools, September 15, 2026

The same mail moved on from schools to courts and police posts. It told people to keep children off the metro and trains through September 29, a span of 14 days from the morning it landed.

TARGETS NAMED IN THE MAIL

• Schools at 1:11 pm: The subject line set that minute for Delhi schools.
• Metro and trains: The text warned against travel on either through September 29.
• Police posts: It said every Delhi police station was a mark for blasts.
• Court complexes: Tees Hazari, Karkardoma and “Patila Court” were listed for 3:11 pm, with a claim of scooter bombs in parking bays.

Crews still had to treat the words as live until the searches finished. Fire tenders and ambulances stood by while dogs worked the floors. A reporter’s on-the-ground list put Army Public School in the same morning’s inboxes as the British School, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Springdales and Air Force Bal Bharati, which is how a three-name wire item became a wider sweep before noon.

What Happened to the Half-Yearly Exams?

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya was in the middle of half-yearly papers when the mail hit. Parents said September 15 was the first day of those exams. The school cleared the campus at once and wrote to families while police were still on the grounds.

Dear parents, the school has received a security threat. All students have been safely evacuated from the school premises. The police have been informed and are taking the necessary steps.

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, notice to parents, September 15, 2026

Middle school students had already finished their papers. Senior school students had finished most of theirs. The school said it would sit with the remaining senior papers and tell parents once it had a plan. Police said the mail had arrived in exam hours.

That is the part of these scares that does not need a bomb. A half-yearly morning is a fixed target. Empty the building and the paper stops, even when the check later finds nothing. Fire standing orders still tell staff to leave by the nearest available exit, close doors behind them, and skip the lift. Schools do not get to treat a mailed blast claim as noise.

Six Recorded Waves Already in 2026

A public log of Delhi school cases through early August put 2026 at six mass waves, at least 60 bomb threat emails, and at least 51 schools. Every one of those waves was later called a hoax. Tuesday’s round sits on top of that list, not inside it.

THE 2026 WAVES BEFORE TUESDAY

The 60-email figure counts messages. The 51-school figure counts campuses in those six waves. They are not the same pile. August 3 also pulled bomb squads, dog units and fire crews onto the roads before breakfast, and many of those schools sent children home for the day.

Go back one more year and the volume is worse. Delhi Police counted 25 emails that reached more than 400 schools from April 30, 2024, through mid-July 2025, with about 50 of those schools hit more than once. Some of those mails also named hospitals, airports and airlines. A 2025 count of Delhi-NCR cases put more than 150 schools and colleges on the list in eight months, including a single day in August 2025 when more than 50 schools got the same text.

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya Keeps Landing on the List

The useful way to read Tuesday is not as a one-off at three famous gates. It is as another pass at inboxes that have already been emptied this year.

THE SAME SCHOOLS, AGAIN

1. January 29, 2026: Sardar Patel Vidyalaya is in a five-school morning wave, with Carmel Convent.
2. February 23, 2026: Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan, and Air Force Bal Bharati are mailed in the same window as the Delhi Secretariat.
3. August 3, 2026: Sardar Patel Vidyalaya is among more than 20 schools emptied after identical early mails.
4. September 15, 2026: Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Army Public School and the British School are named again, with Springdales, Sanskriti, Air Force Bal Bharati and Carmel Convent in the wider set of inboxes.

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya has now been pulled out of class in January, August and September. Army Public School at Dhaula Kuan was on the February 23 list and on Tuesday’s. Air Force Bal Bharati and Carmel Convent show up twice in the same nine months. Whoever is writing these notes does not need a new directory. The old one still works.

Atul Garg, who retired as Delhi Fire Service director in October 2025, has said nearly 60 schools had taken hoax calls or emails in a single spell while he was in the job. The crews still roll. There is no “routine” version of a bomb call when the building is full of children.

Why the Sender Trail Keeps Dying at a VPN

Police almost never see a clean Indian IP on these mails. Investigators have said the unsolved cases run through VPNs and overseas servers, and that a request to Google often yields only a middle hop. From there the next firm is abroad, the logs are encrypted, and the file stalls.

The 2024-25 school wave used a mail.ru address, sawariim@mail.ru, on a Moscow-based service. Delhi Police asked Moscow for the account holder through Interpol and then found a VPN sitting in front of that account. Other batches have been tied to a German encrypted mail host and to a proxy that resolved to Utica, New York. Special Commissioner of Police Madhup Tiwari said a juvenile had sent mail to more than 400 schools, including 250 on May 1, and that the break came when the boy’s VPN plan failed to connect. DCP South Ankit Chauhan said that student admitted sending earlier threat emails as well.

When the mask holds, the day still looks the same: mail at the official inbox, PCR call, bomb suit out of the RK Puram store, dogs in the corridor, parents at the gate, hoax stamp, class maybe, maybe not. The Southern Range bomb disposal room on the third floor of RK Puram police station keeps bomb suits and searchlights for exactly this loop. Tuesday did not change the loop. It only ran it again, with Khalistan slogans and a metro warning taped on.

Anonymous Bomb Emails Carry Extra Jail Time

The Sanhita already has a box for this. Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, in force from July 1, 2024, treats a threat of injury to person or property, sent by any means, as criminal intimidation if the aim is to alarm someone or to make them skip a lawful act. A half-yearly paper is a lawful act. An anonymous blast mail is a way of stopping it.

WHAT THE SANHITA ALLOWS

• Ordinary intimidation: Section 351(2) allows jail of up to two years, or a fine, or both.
• Death or destruction threats: Section 351(3) raises that to imprisonment of up to seven years, or a fine, or both, when the threat is of death, grievous hurt, or destruction of property by fire.
• Hidden sender: Section 351(4) adds up to two more years when the threat is anonymous or the sender has hidden a name or address.
• False alarm and systems: Cyber police have booked like cases under Section 353 of the Sanhita and Section 66 of the IT Act, on top of 351(3) and 351(4).

If the sender is under 18, the file moves under the Juvenile Justice Act, which leans on counselling, community work or an observation home rather than adult jail. That is how the 2024-25 school case ended once the VPN slipped. Minors who skip the mask still get found. The ones who keep it on keep emptying the same three or four campuses.

Police said they were examining Tuesday’s headers and trying to name the sender. Sardar Patel Vidyalaya said it would decide the leftover senior papers after it had read the security picture. The buildings were clear by early afternoon. The inboxes will be open again on the next exam morning.