Gandhinagar, March 18 (IANS) The Gujarat Legislative Assembly was placed on high alert on Wednesday after an anonymous email threatened to detonate bombs at the complex and other key locations across the state.

The Assembly session, which was underway at the time, was suspended, and all MLAs, ministers, and staff were safely evacuated.

Security agencies, including the police, Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), bomb disposal squad, and dog squad teams, immediately cordoned off the premises and conducted a thorough search.

Cybercrime officials launched an investigation into the origin of the email to determine whether it was a prank or a genuine terrorist threat.

No suspicious items were found. An MLA present at the session confirmed, “All security protocols were followed carefully. The Assembly has now resumed after verification, and proceedings are continuing as normal.”

Authorities also intensified checks in and around the Secretariat, and a high alert remained in place across Gandhinagar.

The police and cybercrime teams continue to investigate the source of the threat and trace the accused.

Similar bomb threats and suspicious emails have occasionally prompted evacuations.

In recent months, several courts across Gujarat -- including the Gujarat High Court in Ahmedabad and district courts in Rajkot, Vadodara, Valsad, Gandhinagar and Mehsana -- received bomb threat emails.

These messages prompted evacuations and thorough searches by police, bomb detection and disposal squads and dog units, but no explosives or suspicious materials were found, and the threats were later declared hoaxes.

Not just courts, schools across Gujarat have also faced several hoax bomb threats that prompted evacuations and security responses.

In January, at least 20 schools in Ahmedabad received threatening emails ahead of Republic Day that mentioned extremist slogans, causing police, bomb disposal and dog squad teams to conduct searches before confirming the messages were hoaxes.

Around the same time, another coordinated set of emails was sent to about 34 schools in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, leading to campus evacuations and thorough checking by security personnel before authorities declared them false alarms.

--IANS

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