Hoax event in Rajkot area, India on Sat 26th October 2024

Major search operation follows after 10 Rajkot hotels get fake bomb threats in a day.

Amid concerns over fake bomb threats sent to dozens of flights across the country in recent weeks, now hotels in Gujarat have been targeted. Even as this is the first such spree of hoax emails received by hotels in the state, Gujarat has seen two cases of fake bomb threats sent to flights in about a week.

Ten major hotels in Rajkot district on Saturday saw a massive search operation. Officials of the Rajkot City Police as well as the Rural Police in Rajkot confirmed to The Indian Express that a nearly four-and-a-half hour operation was carried out to completely evacuate the premises of all these hotels and conduct a sweep by the Bomb Detection Disposal Squad (BDDS).

The Imperial Palace, Sayaji, The Sentosa, KK Beacon, Hotel Bhabha, Hotel Paramount Inn, Hotel Jyoti, The Elements, The Grand Regency and Seasons are the 10 hotels that received the threats in emails. Of these, while nine hotels are under the jurisdiction of Rajkot City Police, Seasons falls under the jurisdiction of Rajkot Rural Police.

All the hotels received the bomb threat in an email by a sender named “Kan Din” at 12:45 pm. The email read, “I placed bombs in every location of your hotel. The bombs will go off in a few hours. Many innocent lives will be lost today. Hurry up and evacuate the hotel. EVACUATE NOW (sic).”

As soon as the hotels received the threats, calls were made to police, which led to the deployment of a massive force of 120-150 personnel and officers of the police across these 10 locations.