India, Feb. 22 -- Punjab's battle against a series of hoax bomb threat emails has now moved decisively into the cyber domain, with senior police officials admitting that the use of virtual private networks and foreign servers is making it extremely difficult to identify those behind the threats.

Over the past few months, at least nine major hoax bomb threat incidents have been reported across Punjab and the Tricity region. In January alone, nearly 30 schools received coordinated emails claiming explosives had been planted on their premises. Each alert led to evacuations, deployment of bomb disposal squads and hours of safeguard checks. No explosives were found in any case.

The pattern intensified this week. Several schools in Mohali rec...