Hoax bomb threat triggers security drill at metro stns

Jaipur: A day after a hoax email led to a full evacuation of SMS Stadium, another threatening email sent Friday warned of bomb attacks targeting Jaipur Metro infrastructure, triggering a high alert across the city.

DCP (Metro) Sushil Kumar said the threat mail, referencing "Operation Sindoor", claimed that metro systems across the country would be bombed. In response, Jaipur police launched an extensive security drill, conducting thorough checks at all metro stations and key installations. "All metro lines were secured and sanitised as per standard procedure," Kumar said.

The email is the latest in a growing list of digital threats received in recent months.

Police officials confirmed that over a dozen such emails were reported in the last three months, all of which turned out to be hoaxes. Still, each case required full-scale response operations, exhausting considerable manpower and resources.

"Even though we know many of these threats are false, we are obligated to follow the full SOP—evacuation, bomb disposal sweeps, deployment of dog squads and anti-terror units—until each threat is ruled out," a senior official said.

Police suspect that the sender of the email used multiple proxy servers to mask the IP address, making it difficult to trace the origin. Officials said that the matter was escalated to central cyber agencies, and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was approached for assistance.

A senior officer said some email service providers have recently become less cooperative, citing an increasing number of hoax cases. "Earlier, major tech firms treated these as emergency disclosures. Now they process such requests slowly, classifying them as routine queries," the officer said.