12 Flights Receive Bomb Threats in Last 48 Hours; Security Tightened

New Delhi: The spate of hoax bomb threat continues in the country with the Akasa Air flight being the latest to witness a bomb scare. The series of such threats indicates a planned effort to create disorder and panic among the aviation industry.

In the last 48 hours, at least 12 flights of several airlines including Air India, Air India Express, SpiceJet, Akasa Air, Air India, IndiGo, Alliance Air, Air India Express, Akasa Air received bomb threats leading to panic among passengers.

• On Monday, three international flights departing from Mumbai received bomb threats. These three flights included New York-bound Air India flight, Muscat-bound IndiGo flight and Jeddah-bound IndiGo flight.
• Whereas on Tuesday, seven flights were gripped under bomb scare. These seven flights include a  Jaipur-Bengaluru Air India Express flight via Ayodhya (IX765), a Darbhanga-Mumbai SpiceJet flight (SG116), a Bagdogra-Bengaluru Akasa Air flight (QP 1373), a Delhi-Chicago Air India flight  (AI 127), an Indigo flight from Dammam (Saudi Arabia) to Lucknow (6E 98), an Alliance Air Amritsar-Dehradun-Delhi flight (9I 650) and a Madurai-Singapore Air India Express flight (IX 684).
• Meanwhile on Wednesday, two flights including Delhi-Bengaluru Akasa aircraft and Mumbai-Delhi IndiGo aircraft, got bomb threats. 

In the wake of several flights receiving bomb threats, the central government on Wednesday, October 16, anounced to double the number of air marshals on ‘sensitive routes’. The news was confirmed by a senior official from the Ministry of Home Affairs who stated that the decision has been taken recently after an assessment of the growing threat and getting inputs from intelligence agencies.

"The fresh batch of Air Narshals will be deployed on new international routes added in sensitive category based on intelligence report. The decision was taken after several rounds of meetings will all stakeholders in aviation security," the official added.

A unit of the National Security Guard (NSG) specialised in anti-terror and anti-hijacking measures has been deployed as the 'Air Marshals' in several international and domestic routes. 

Meanwhile, flights bound for Afghanistan's Kabul, Kathmandu in Nepal and several other routes in Sri Lanka and Canada have been termed as sensitive routes. This comes as the Ministry of Civil Aviation called a high-level meeting after several flights received bomb threats recently.