5-Year Flying Ban For Hoax Bomb Callers, Recommends Aviation Security Chief

Amid a spurt in hoax bomb threats to airports and airlines, often causing hours of delays, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has recommended a five-year flying ban for those responsible.

Cases of fake threats have increased in the past few months, and tough action needs to be taken to deter pranksters, Zulfiquar Hasan, Director General, BCAS, told NDTV.

Mr Hasan said six people have been arrested so far for bomb threats that later turned out to be fake. Investigations are on in many more such cases, he said.

Airports, especially in metros, have been grappling with hoax threats, causing inconvenience to passengers and prompting authorities to carry out searches and evacuation operations.

41 airports across the country received bomb threat emails yesterday and these were found to be hoax after thorough searches.

The airports in Mumbai, Varanasi, Chennai, Patna, Nagpur, Jaipur, Vadodara, Coimbatore and Jabalpur were among those that received the hoax threats.

The emails received by the airports had an identical message, reported the news agency PTI. "Hello, there are explosives hidden in the Airport. The bombs will soon explode. You will all die," the email said.

At Chennai airport, a flight bound for Dubai was delayed for hours after the hoax threat. It was cleared for the take-off after officials found nothing suspicious on the flight.

A similar bomb threat was sent to several airports in April too.

Top schools in Delhi also received threat emails last month. In Mumbai, more than 60 hospitals and schools got emails threatening bomb blasts.