Delhi’s Taj Palace Hotel receives hoax bomb threat

Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi’s Chanakyapuri received a hoax bomb threat through email in the early hours of Saturday, police said.

A senior officer said that authorities conducted a thorough search of the premises, but no suspicious object was found.

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The threat came a day after the Delhi High Court was targeted on Friday. The court received an email warning about explosives in and around its premises, triggering panic and disrupting proceedings.

According to the police officer, the email was received at 2 am, which warned that all hotel guests would be ‘sent to God’ and claimed that several IEDs had been planted on different floors of the building.

When the hotel staff checked their emails in the morning, they found the threat and promptly alerted the police through a PCR call.

“A bomb disposal team, along with a dog squad, was rushed to the spot which thoroughly searched all the floors, but the threat turned out to be a hoax,” the officer said.

Adding to his statement further, he said, “While efforts are underway to trace the source of the email, police believe the chances of identifying the sender are minimal. As in previous bomb hoax cases, they suspect this message was also routed through a VPN.”

Earlier, the bomb threat came to the Delhi High Court through a similar email that disrupted the court proceedings.

“The email was received at 8:38 am on Friday on the HC’s official ID and was sent via Outlook.com,” a police officer had said.

The hoax email sent to the HC alleged that three bombs had been planted on the premises and warned that the building must be evacuated by 2 pm. It further claimed the sender had ‘links with the ISI in Coimbatore’ and threatened to ‘recreate the 1998 blasts,’ the Delhi Police said.