At least 20 airlines operated by Indian carriers received bomb threats on Saturday, reported The Hindu.
This took the number of bomb threats received by Indian air carriers to over 40 in six days.
IndiGo flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Istanbul, and Jodhpur to Delhi as well as Vistara’s flight from Udaipur to Mumbai were among those that received the threats on Saturday, according to PTI. A total of seven IndiGo flights and six Vistara flights received threats.
While most threats were made on social media, a note warning of a bomb was found in the lavatory of the Udaipur-Mumbai Vistara flight.
On Friday, three international flights operated by Vistara had received bomb threats, which turned out to be hoaxes.
Following this, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, the aviation security regulator, held a meeting with the CEOs and representatives of several airlines, reported The Hindu.
“The meeting discussed ways to strike a balance between keeping the skies safe as well as to ensure minimum inconvenience to passengers and airlines,” an unidentified official of the Ministry of Home Affairs was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “We have been able to ensure that no flight is diverted or delayed because of these threats.”
The decision to let a flight continue to its destination is being taken after analysing each threat, said the official. He also said that only 10% of the flights had to go through secondary checks after their arrival at the destination.
On Wednesday, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Kinjarapu Naidu said that the Mumbai Police had arrested a minor for issuing three of the initial threats to flights.
“I am deeply concerned over the recent disruptive acts targeting Indian airlines, affecting domestic and international operations,” Naidu said. Such “mischievous and unlawful actions” were a matter of grave concern, he added.
The minister also said that he chaired a meeting of a high-level committee, comprising officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, the Central Industrial Security Force, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
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