Nadine Osman
A Birmingham school with 450 Muslim pupils was evacuated after receiving a bomb threat by email, prompting a major police response and a search of the premises with sniffer dogs.
Hamd House School, an independent secondary school with a Muslim ethos, was forced to evacuate after the threatening email was received on July 14, with schools’ watchdog Ofsted also copied into the message.
Officers from West Midlands Police attended the school, which caters for pupils aged 11 to 16, and carried out a full search of the site before declaring there was no credible threat.
The incident unfolded as students were marking the final day of the academic year.
Israr Khan, the school’s proprietor said the “school was full and pupils were celebrating the last day before summer, we were giving out awards and having a day of celebration and fun on this special day, and this was hugely disrupting.”
Khan said specialist officers and sniffer dogs searched the school grounds before giving the all-clear.
He added that the school appeared to have been deliberately targeted and claimed there had been other recent incidents involving staff and the school.
“At this stage the matter remains an open police investigation. An unusual and bizarre quirk to this situation is that the threat was also sent to Ofsted. The police have logged this incident as harassment,” he said.
“We will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities and follow any advice they provide.”
West Midlands Police confirmed officers responded to the incident after the email was received.
In a statement to The Muslim News they said, “We were called after a bomb threat was received by the school via an email. Officers attended and were satisfied there wasn’t a credible threat.”
Hamd House School is rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted, which describes it as a “highly inclusive” school where every child is “safe, happy, visible and valued.”
The incident has also prompted concern from anti-Islamophobia organisation Mend, which criticised what it described as the lack of public attention surrounding the threat.
In a post on X, the organisation said: “Ask yourself what the reaction would be if 450 children at any other school were threatened this way.
“The quiet tells you something about whose safety is treated as a story and whose is treated as background noise.”
Muslim advocacy group MEND added, “It should be investigated as a hate crime targeting Muslim children, especially as there had been other recent incidents against staff and the school.”
