It was chaos in Delhi schools on Wednesday when, soon after the schools opened, they found emails informing them about bombs placed on their campuses. As they evacuated students from the classes and informed the parents to take away their children, the students had to wait on the playground under the scorching sun till buses could be arranged and parents could come. The parents had a tougher time, as they had to leave their offices or abandon their journeys to offices to pick up their children. At least 100 schools received the deadly emails. The police and the bomb detection squads had a tough time visiting so many schools, looking for bombs, and ensuring that there were no explosive objects on the campuses. Finally, the police declared that the emails were hoaxes sent with the sole purpose of causing tension. In fact, nobody could have planted bombs in so many schools.
True, the scaremongers succeeded in creating confusion among school managements, staff, parents, and students. However, it would be too much to say that panic prevailed on campuses. Many saw it as an attempt to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the capital. Till the time of writing, the police have not been able to trace the mails to those who sent them. The difficulty is because the senders used multiple systems and servers, some of them based in Russia, to send the mails. Since every machine from which a mail is sent has a unique identity number, it may still be possible for the police to zero in on the person or persons who sent the malicious mails. They need to be identified, brought to book, and given exemplary punishment in the shortest time so that no one in the future would dare to make a similar attempt. Needless to say, the police have to be one step ahead of the criminals. With elections in Delhi around the corner, police can expect such fireworks in the future too. Terrorists succeed only when they are able to create fear in the minds of the people. Like a rabid dog that can bite anyone, the anonymous emailer can be expected to create more such mischief. But we as a nation should stand united and face all the challenges that the nation faces, be they internal or external. Nothing is more important than unity, as underscored when police, school authorities, parents and students acted in concert.
