On Saturday, 27 October, at around 12:45 PM, at least 10 major hotels in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, received bomb threats via email. The sender threatened to blow up the premium properties if a ransom demand of USD 55,000 (approx. Rs 46,24,288) was not met. The hotels that received bomb threats include Marriott, Saraca, Piccadily, Comfort Vista, Fortune, Lemon Tree, Clark Awadh, Casa, Dayal Gateway, and Silvette.
The email read, “Bombs are hidden in black bags on the grounds of your hotel. I want $55,000 or I will detonate the explosives and blood will spread everywhere. Any attempt at defusing the bombs will detonate them.” Following the threatening letter, the police were informed, leading to a swift investigation.
According to a Times Now report, Police Inspector SM Jadeda of the Special Operations Group (SOG) said that the hotels received the threats on Sunday, leading to search operations on these premises with the bomb disposal squad. The sender of the email, identified himself as Adam Lanza and the email was send from the email ID sandyhookchildkilling[at]outlook.com. The email was send on 8:03 AM. The sender asked the hotels to contact him on his primary email address shaikha.nasser20077[at] gmail.com to pay the ransom.
Notably, the bomb threat in Lucknow came just two days after three hotels in Tirupati district received similar threats. The email to those hotels read that “international pressure” had mounted due to the arrest of Jaffar Sadiq and that “such blasts in schools are necessary to divert attention away from the MK Stalin family’s involvement in the case.”
Bomb threats against Indian airlines
Apart from bomb threats to hotels, Indian airlines have been facing an unprecedented increase in bomb threats in the past few weeks. Total threats cross 275 in 11 days with over 25 alerts on Friday. Both domestic and international flights of various airlines were targeted with threats. IndiGo said that 8 of its flights got security-related alerts. Similarly, 6 SpiceJet flights received bomb threats on Friday. 7 Vistara flights and 5 Air India flights were also issued similar threats. As per reports, over 70 flights of various airlines received security threats within 24 hours on Thursday.
These included threats to 20 Air India flights, 20 flights of Indigo, 20 Vistara flights and 13 from flights Akasa Airlines. The total number of threats received by airlines has crossed 275 in the last 11 days. While the threats have turned out to be hoax, this is causing financial loss to the aviation industry, and disrupting flight operations. As per security protocol, any flight receiving threats have to make emergency landings, and the airport has to make arrangements for evacuation of passengers as soon as possible.
