Bhopal

An email threatening to blow up a state government office using cyanide gas cylinders triggered panic and a precautionary evacuation on Monday, but the alert later turned out to be a hoax, officials said.

The threat email targeted the office of the Weights and Measures Department located in the MP Nagar area.

Office superintendent Shyamu Solanki said he noticed the email while checking messages around 10:20 am.

The message claimed that 16 cylinders filled with cyanide gas had been placed inside the department office and would explode around 1 pm, he said.

Solanki informed senior officials, following which the police were alerted.

Teams from the police and a bomb disposal squad, along with sniffer dogs, rushed to the spot and carried out a search of the premises. The building was also evacuated as a precautionary measure.

However, officials said no cylinders or explosives were found during the search.

Vivek Singh said an investigation was underway to identify the sender of the email.

He suspected that a gang might be sending such threatening emails across the country using fake identities.

Authorities noted that similar threats had earlier been sent to People's University and AIIMS Bhopal, but those alerts had also turned out to be false.

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Department officials and employees resumed work at around 1:10 pm, said workers’ leader Umashankar Tiwari.