Junior High Student Accused of Bomb Threat against School

Police in North Texas on Thursday reported a Sikh junior high student of Indian descent had admitted threatening to explode a bomb at school. The12-year-old Sikh boy spent three days in a juvenile detention center after a ‘bully’ allegedly told teachers he had a bomb hidden in his school bag. Armaan Singh Sarai of Arlington, Texas, was locked up on Friday, according to a Facebook post by his cousin Ginee Haer, which at time of writing has been shared 7,000 times.

“On Friday, December 11th, 2015,” the post says, “my cousin attended school, like any other normal 12 year old child. A bully in class thought it would be funny to accuse him of having a bomb, and so the principal, without any questioning, interrogation, or notification to his parents, called the police. Worried & frightened at home, his family was concerned as to why he had not reached home right after school. They started calling every police department in the area, only to find out he was sent to a Juvenile facility. They kept him held behind bars for three consecutive days, before finally releasing him on Monday, December 15th.”

Arlington police Lt. Christopher Cook stated that the boy was arrested last week on a charge of making a terroristic threat at Nichols Junior High School. He said the boy told another student last Thursday that he had a bomb in his backpack. Cook said the next day, the boy made the claim again to the same student and elaborated that he would take his backpack into a bathroom and have the bomb exploded in just one minute.

The case comes three months after a 14-year-old Muslim boy of Pakistani descent was arrested at his high school in nearby Irving, another Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, after he brought a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a possible bomb. Ahmed Mohamed was detained but quickly released. His family questioned whether he was mistreated due to his religion and eventually left Irving after reporting threats. They now live in Qatar. His lawyers have threatened the Texas City and the school district with a lawsuit, and the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the incident.

Cook said that the boy in the Arlington school incident admitted that he made the bomb claim but insisted he was joking. “The suspect never told us anything about being bullied,” the lieutenant said. “The ethnicity or race does not figure into our investigation in any way. There is nothing in the report that would indicate that the suspect was set up. Keep in mind he admitted to officers that he made the threats and that he was just kidding.”

“People have got to learn they cannot make these types of threats, which cause alarm, which cause evacuations,” police spokesman Lt. Christopher Cook said. “Just because you say it’s a joke, it doesn’t get you out of trouble.”

However, the Singhs insist the investigation has been unfair, and Armaan shouldn’t have spent the weekend detained in Fort Worth with teenagers accused of crimes such as drug possession and theft.

“We’re those kind of people who, if it was his fault, would let him stay in there so he could learn his lesson,” said his brother Aksh, 17.