Union Minister of Civil Aviation K Ram Mohan Naidu announced that the Government of India is looking at steps to ban flyers who resort to hoax bomb threats. According to the union minister, the Centre is looking at international intelligence bureaus and law enforcement agencies for support in a bid to bring changes to civil aviation law.
“Those who resort to these kinds of activities will be punished severely and imposed a penalty. We are also taking steps to ban such persons from flying,” said Naidu, promising that more will be updated in the “coming days”.
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India’s airspace has been under a slew of bomb threats and hoax alerts for quite some time now. In the past 13 days ending Saturday, over 300 flights received threats, mostly via social media channels. Naidu said that the Centre also reached out to X, formerly Twitter, to cooperate with the investigation.
“We are deeply concerned In the wake of recent hoax bomb threats disrupting air travel . I assure you that safety and security are our highest priorities, and we are committed to taking strict action against those behind these malicious acts,” read the tweet from the minister’s official X handle.
On Saturday, the Centre issued an advisory to social media platforms Meta and X to proactively remove misinformation, and report threats, along with assisting authorities.
Last week, many carriers such as Akasa Air had to deplane all passengers due to threats. Later in the week, a 17-year-old boy was arrested in Mumbai for issuing threats to at least four flights.
According to the minister, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) is working with the Ministry of Home Affairs on planning further preventive actions to arrest the rampant series of hoax threats and ensure a lasting solution through effective law change.