The Bombay High Court premises in the Fort area of South Mumbai were evacuated on Thursday after receiving an email warning of a bomb.
Along with the High Court, several magistrate courts in Mumbai, specifically those at Bandra, Andheri and Esplanade (Killa Court), also received similar threats, prompting large-scale security checks, the police said.
A senior official of Mumbai Police assured citizens there was no need to panic and confirmed that the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) had conducted thorough searches across all affected premises.
No explosives were found and the threats are being treated as hoax with investigations underway to trace the sender.
Sources told Bar & Bench that once the Bandra court received the email, the standard operating procedure for bomb threats was immediately activated and the entire premises were evacuated.
A similar procedure was followed at the Andheri Magistrate court and police will be registering cases against unidentified persons.
At the principal bench of the Bombay High Court, the Chief Justice, lawyers, litigants and court staff were asked to leave the premises.
An internal message circulated by the Bombay Bar Association (BBA) and the Advocates’ Association of Western India (AAWI) stated that the court would reconvene at 3 pm once the police had completed their safety checks.
The BBA also requested its members and their staff to vacate the High Court building and cooperate with the police and High Court administration in view of the security concerns.
The communication indicated that further updates would follow upon clearance by the authorities.
An email warning of a bomb was also received by the Principal District and Sessions Court in Nagpur on Thursday.
