At least 10 hotels, including five-star establishments, in Gujarat’s Rajkot on Saturday received bomb threats via email, officials said.
Among the targeted hotels are the Imperial Palace, Sayaji Hotel, Seasons Hotel, and Grand Regency, all well-known names in the region’s hospitality sector. The timing of this threat, coinciding with the festive season, has heightened concerns among residents and visitors.
Rajkot Police has launched a thorough investigation to trace the origins of the threatening email. Authorities have begun rigorous checks across the targeted hotels to ensure the safety of guests and staff.
“I placed bombs in every location of your hotel. The bombs will go off in a few hours. Many innocent lives will be lost today. Hurry up and evacuate the hotel. EVACUATE NOW,” read the email received by the hotels.
The latest bomb threat comes at a time when several Indian airlines, including Air India, IndiGo, Vistara and others, have received as many as 250 similar warnings in the last 10 days. Even today, bomb threats were issued to 27 flights of SpiceJet, IndiGo, Air India, and Vistara, prompting heightened security measures at multiple airports in the country.
Threats were sent to six Air India flights, along with seven flights each from SpiceJet, IndiGo, and Vistara. On Friday, 95 flights of IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet, Alliance Air and Akasa Air received similar threats.
On October 24, authorities of Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda airports received threats about the presence of bombs on different flights, but those later turned out to be hoaxes.
According to officials, the airport premises were checked. Some planes which were mentioned in the threat were also taken to the isolation bay and thoroughly checked, he said, adding it turned out to be a hoax.
Earlier this week, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said the government is planning to take actions to deal with instances of hoax bomb threats to airlines, including placing perpetrators of such threats on the no-fly list.