Cops evacuate Indian Museum, Science City after bomb scare
Times of India | 6 January 2024
Kolkata: Two museums and two science centres in the city were impacted on Friday after they received threat emails claiming bombs had been placed on the four premises. Thousands of visitors were turned away or evacuated as checks were carried out at the sites. None of the search operations, however, yielded anything.
The maximum disruption happened at Science City, which had to be shut for four hours.It was one of the most challenging places to conduct a search in since it has many buildings and hedges. Visitors who arrived in the afternoon were turned away.
At Indian Museum, visitors were turned away and around 350 who were inside were evacuated as checks began around 11.15am. After the museum reopened at 4pm, NDRF conducted a 45-minute drill that again caused a disruption. Museum authorities refunded money to those who had bought tickets in advance.
The email threat was received around 4.40am. “I placed multiple explosives inside of the museum (sic). The explosives are well hidden and they will go off in the morning. Everyone inside will die. We are a group called Tewrrorizers 111. Give our group’s name to the media or we won’t stop causing chaos,” the threat message said.
“We had to wait till late afternoon to get our belongings back,” said Soumendra Chatterjee who had come to the museum with his grandson.
“After we found the threat email, we brought it to the notice of CISF. On their advice, we got in touch with cops. We reopened the museum around 4pm,” said a museum official.
The Birla Industrial & Technological Museum was also vacated and the facility on Gurusaday Road was combed before it was reopened to visitors. At Victoria Memorial Hall, intense checks were carried out on visitors’ bags. VMH curator Samarendra Kumar said only purses were allowed inside and other bags had to be deposited in the cloak room after checks.
Cases have been started at New Market, Karaya and Pragati Maidan police stations.