Major Indian airlines, including Air India, received multiple bomb threats over the last two days, disrupting their operations and causing major inconvenience to the passengers.
According to CISF, over 10 bomb scares were reported on Monday and Tuesday, prompting Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu to call an emergency meeting on Tuesday. The officials from the Bureau of Civil Aviation, CISF and other airport security officials attended the meeting.
Sources with the CISF told ANI that several accounts posting bomb threats have been identified and suspended. They added that they had been informed that some threats originated in London and from other countries.
Also read: Aviation ministry calls high-level meeting after series of bomb threats to flights
Meanwhile, a minor from Chhattisgarh has been detained for posting bomb threats on social media platform X. The 17-year-old has been summoned with his father to Mumbai for questioning.
Police said the boy posted the messages to implicate a 31-year-old man with whom he had personal grudges over a business dealing. The boy was questioned and presented before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) which sent him to four-day custody for police inquiry. The probe revealed that an individual using the handles @fazluddin69 and @fazluddin27077, posted the bomb threat messages, the report added.
Rajnandgaon Superintendent of Police Mohit Garg told reporters that a bomb threat was posted on X for Air India's Mumbai-New York flight and IndiGo's Mumbai to Muscat and Mumbai to Jeddah flights. "After receiving information about the tweet's connection with Rajnandgaon, Raipur Cyber Cell, Kotwali Police Rajnandgaon, and Cyber Cell, collected electronic data related to the case," he said.
Singapore fights escort AI flight
The Singapore Armed Forces on Tuesday scrambled two fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane away from populated areas following a bomb threat.
The threat was received by an Air India Express plane IX 684 from Madurai to Singapore. The aircraft landed safely at Singapore's Changi airport.
Singapore's Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said Air India Express received an email that there was a bomb on board flight AXB684 that was bound for Singapore. "Two of our RSAF F-15SGs scrambled and escorted the plane away from populated areas, to finally land safely at Singapore Changi Airport at around 10:04 pm tonight," he said in a series of posts on X.
He added that the Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) systems and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) were also activated. "Once on the ground, the plane was handed to the airport police," he said, adding that a probe is on in this regard.