KUALA LUMPUR: Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain confirmed receiving police reports on false bomb threats at 19 international schools nationwide, including seven in Selangor and five in Kuala Lumpur, today.
In a statement this evening, he said the bomb scares were all received via an email sent out by two email addresses newly created under 'Taktstorer' and 'Takstorer' via Beeble.com email service provider.
"As an immediate safety measure, police with the help of the affected school management and fire and rescue department evacuated the schools involved, before a thorough security flushing was carried out at all the schools nationwide. Once confirmed that there were no bombs or explosives planted at each of the schools, we knew the bomb scare was a hoax," he said in a statement.
Razarudin said apart from Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, three schools in Johor, two in Penang, one each in Perak and Negri Sembilan had also received the same email.
"The email address 'Taktstorer' which means troublemaker/ peace disruptor in German has never been used to send out any emails prior to this. The original text in the bomb scare email was written in English and later translated to Bahasa Malaysia using a translating application.
"Preliminary investigation showed the content of the email is exactly the same as the one sent to 70 schools in Jamaica on November 12 this year. In that case, the suspect was identified as a person who suffered abuse when he was a child and was deprived of attention in his schooling days. Despite that, the suspect had IT software knowledge and capability to hide his identity.
"We are also trying to establish if the recent threat has anything to do with the same suspect in Jamaica," he added.
Razarudin said the case is being investigated under Section 507 of the Penal Code for deliberately causing criminal intimidation and under Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998.
He too assured that the schools, students and teachers are not at risk of a potential bombing and it is safe.
"Police do not take such threats lightly and investigations are ongoing to identify any individuals believed to be responsible for sending out the bomb scare," he said.