And the threats exhausting and disruptive

At Birla Vidya Niketan in South Delhi, the day begins with the administrative staff members checking the inbox of their official email ID, around 4:30 -5 am.

“The first thing the office staff do is check the mails,” said Principal Minakshi Khushwaha.

“If there is any such (threat) mail, they inform me… and the police.”
Such early-morning vigilance has become routine inDelhischools as bomb threat emails, almost always hoaxes, land with unsettling frequency.

Each message forces administrators to prepare for the worst: evacuating buildings, calling bomb squads, informing authorities and parents, and suspending classes.

Khushwaha said her school has received around five such emails in recent years and most arrived before the school hours.

“Fortunately, we got all of them before the school started,” she said.

“Before 7:30, when the children came, the searches were complete and the police had given us a green signal.”
The school follows a routine inspection protocol every day.

After classes end, the building is cleaned and inspected for any suspicious object before classrooms are locked.

The process is repeated the next morning.

However, it is different when the threat is received after the classes have begun.

“Once the email had come after everybody was inside,” Khushwaha said.

“We quickly informed the police.

They came with sniffer dogs and checked the building.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the reaction among students has changed over time.

“If you take the children to the ground, they start playing.”
Yet the evacuation is not an easy process.

“Sometimes it is very cold.

Sometimes it is very warm.

The ground is not always a very good place,” she said.

“But there is no solution.”
“This has been happening for the last two or three years.

Before that, I don’t think there was anything like this,” Khushwaha added.

The logistics of managing security in a large school make additional safeguards difficult.

Khushwaha said nearly 4,000 students enter the campus in a 10-minute window.

While metal detectors might seem like a solution, she is unsure how effective they would be.

“That would be a good idea, but I have heard those are not very reliable,” she said.

“If something is put into a child’s bag while he is standing at the bus stop, nobody would know,” she said.

Modern Public School in Shalimar Bagh has received two bomb threat emails in recent months.

“One came three-four months ago and one about a month ago,” Principal Alka Kapur said.

In both cases, the school followed the same emergency protocol: evacuation.

Students were evacuated and handed over to their parents after ID cards were checked.

“It was a cumbersome procedure,” Kapur said.

“All the parents arrive together.

There is a lot of panic.

Children sit outside.

All these also lead to a traffic jam.”
The evacuation may happen quickly, but dispersing students takes longer.

“The entire day is gone,” Kapur said.

Once the bomb squad arrives, the search can take hours.“They check the entire premises and the process goes on till evening,” the Principal said.

Teachers often leave classrooms leaving their belongings behind during the evacuation.

“They just run.

They don’t even go to the staff room to collect their bags.”
The school administration often has to arrange food and other necessities for the staff.

The Principal said: “Now we also keep an emergency medical kit.”
For parents, the situation can be stressful.

“Parents are in panic.

They want to take their children home immediately,” Kaupr said.

Coordinating pick-ups for hundreds of students can be chaotic.“Parents often want us to start the bus service, but that is not possible.”
“Some parents even come with two-year-old ID cards.

Their address has changed, the phone number has changed and they have not even reported it,” she said.

In such situations, she believes cooperation between parents and schools is essential.

“There has to be a coordinated effort between the school and the parents,” Kapur said.

“One-way effort does not work.”
Students, however, often react in a calmer way than adults.

“I was in my classroom when the evacuation announcement was made,” said Ananya Thakur, a Class 11 student at the school.

“We thought it was another drill, because nobody told us there was a bomb threat,” she said.

The school conducts monthly evacuation drills.

“We went to our designated spots in the main ground,” she said.

“Placards were already in place and there was no confusion.”
Even younger students remained calm.

Only later did students realise that the evacuation had been triggered by a real bomb threat.

From a student’s perspective, the main impact is academic.

However, the situation, it is said, returns to normal quickly.

Arhita Jain of Class 8 said: “Teachers guided us towards the main ground during the evacuation.”
Students moved in an order to the designated area.

She said the drills actually make students prepared.“It reinforces the importance of safety awareness.”
Vidheesha Kuntamalla is a Senior Correspondent at The Indian Express, based in New Delhi.

She is known for her investigative reporting on higher education policy, international student immigration, and academic freedom on university campuses.

Her work consistently connects policy decisions with lived realities, foregrounding how administrative actions, political pressure, and global shifts affect students, faculty, and institutions.

Professional Profile
Core Beat: Vidheesha covers education in Delhi and nationally, reporting on major public institutions including the University of Delhi (DU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Millia Islamia, the IITs, and the IIMs.

She also reports extensively on private and government schools in the National Capital Region.

Prior to joining The Indian Express, she worked as a freelance journalist in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for over a year, covering politics, rural issues, women-centric issues, and social justice.

Specialisation: She has developed a strong niche in reporting on the Indian student diaspora, particularly the challenges faced by Indian students and H-1B holders in the United States.

Her work examines how geopolitical shifts, immigration policy changes, and campus politics impact global education mobility.

She has also reported widely on:
* Mental health crises and student suicides at IITs
* Policy responses to campus mental health
* Academic freedom and institutional clampdowns at JNU, South Asian University (SAU), and Delhi University
* Curriculum and syllabus changes under the National Education Policy
Her recent reporting has included deeply reported human stories on policy changes during the Trump administration and their consequences for Indian students and researchers in the US.

Reporting Style
Vidheesha is recognised for a human-centric approach to policy reporting, combining investigative depth with intimate storytelling.

Her work often highlights the anxieties of students and faculty navigating bureaucratic uncertainty, legal precarity, and institutional pressure.

She regularly works with court records, internal documents, official data, and disciplinary frameworks to expose structural challenges to academic freedom.

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