Mumbai, Oct. 2: Every time Rubeena Sheikh could not complete her homework, she found a way to wriggle out.

The 15-year-old dialled the police hotline number 100 to warn that a bomb would go off anytime in her school.

The ploy worked. The police would swing into action, descend on the school and ask everybody to leave. In short, a holiday for the students.

Rubeena (name changed) called up Kurla police station in northeast Mumbai at least eight times in the past three months. Yesterday, her luck ran out.

The police, she had not realised, were already suspicious because the calls were from public booths in the same area and warned of threats to the same school, Anjuman-e-Islam.

“The girl used to dial the police hotline number 100 and warn about a bomb threat,” said senior inspector Jadhav. “We traced her location and detained her.”

Rubeena has not been arrested yet but sources said action would be taken against her under the India Penal Code’s Section 507, which deals with criminal intimidation by anonymous communication.

“The motive behind the hoax calls was she wanted holidays on the days she had to submit her homework. We have let her go with her father and the juvenile court will take up the matter,” the officer added.

Police sources said Rubeena has admitted to making the hoax calls. “I was burdened with a lot of homework, both from school and from my private tutor. I couldn’t finish them, so I made the calls,” the Class X girl is said to have told the investigating officer.

One of the calls came when examinations were going on in the school. Students were halfway through their tests when they were asked to evacuate the premises. The school had to reschedule the exams.

Rubeena is not the only one to have made such calls out of fear.

Last year, some students of SPRJ Kannyashala School in Ghatkopar, northeast Mumbai, made hoax calls to their school because they were not prepared for upcoming exams.

A student of a school in Juhu in suburban Mumbai had also tried the same trick last year.