Delhi police called Friday's bomb threats hoaxes, and still locked the capital down for Independence Day
Emails and calls on 14 August named the High Court, IGI Terminal 3 and the Red Fort, a day before the 80th Independence Day. Searches found nothing. The Red Fort ceremony still went ahead under a heavier security net.
A day before India marked 80 years of independence, several sites in Delhi received bomb threats. The Delhi High Court got an email titled for a blast at 2:11 p.m. on 15 August, and a warning of explosions at district courts an hour later. Five other locations (Jamnagar House, a Jhandewalan building, an office on MB Road in Saket, Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport, and the SDM office in Delhi Cantonment) were named in calls that reached the fire control room between 11.18 a.m. and 11.40 a.m., The Hindu reported.
The Times of India, citing a police source, said at least some of the messages arrived by email and referred to 15 August. One warning, in Punjabi, said the Red Fort would be targeted and that the attackers would be in khaki. Joint secretary of the High Court, Advocate Kunal, said the threat appeared fake and that a bomb squad and sniffer dogs were scanning the premises. Police later declared the threats hoaxes after checks. Court work at the High Court was not interrupted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi still unfurled the flag and addressed the country from the Red Fort on Saturday, his 13th consecutive Independence Day speech from the ramparts. India Today said more than 1,000 CCTV cameras inside and outside the fort were tied to systems with AI video analytics.
Hoax or not, the timing was the point. The Red Fort is where the national ceremony happens, and a threat that names khaki uniforms is designed to make every checkpoint slower. Delhi already runs a heavy Independence Day grid. Friday's emails and calls forced another round of searches at a court, an airport terminal and government offices, on a day when the city was already filling with guests, cadets and traffic restrictions.
This is also a reminder of how cheap it has become to pull police, fire crews and bomb squads off other work. The messages did not have to be real to occupy a capital on the eve of a national holiday.
Police will keep treating the senders as a live investigation even after the all-clear. The High Court email gave specific times for 15 August, so those windows will have been watched. For everyone else, the story is whether Saturday's ceremony passed without a further scare, and whether the same template of emailed threats shows up at the next big date in the calendar.