A 25-year-old man from Delhi’s Uttam Nagar was arrested for allegedly sending two bomb threats to multiple flights and airlines on Friday night, said police Saturday.

A hoax caller who has been making false bomb threat calls at the Mumbai airport again claimed that 23 AI flights were under terror threat.(Prasad Gori/HT File Photo)
A hoax caller who has been making false bomb threat calls at the Mumbai airport again claimed that 23 AI flights were under terror threat.(Prasad Gori/HT File Photo)

This is the second arrest by law enforcement agencies after more than 250 flights have been affected due to hoax bomb threats since last week. The Mumbai police had detained a 17-year-old boy in connection with a hoax bomb on October 16.

On Saturday, police said that the accused, Shubham Upadhyay, was caught from his home in Uttam Nagar’s Rajapuri area. Police said he is unemployed and had left his studies after passing 12th board exams.

A senior police officer said that Upadhyay allegedly sent two threatening posts on social media, threatening to blow up flights that were Delhi-bound.

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“We think he copied the schedule of a few flights and pasted them along with a threat saying there was a bomb on these planes,” said the officer.

The two posts were sent to the IGI Airport police early on Saturday who are already on “high alert” due to the regular hoax messages.

Police said they immediately registered a case under the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation (SUA-SCA) Act and section of criminal intimidation under the BNS.

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Usha Rangnani, DCP (IGI Airport) said, “We had taken immediate action and standard security protocols were followed for all flights. The threat was found to be a hoax. During the investigation, the origin of the messages was traced to an account registered in the name of Upadhyay. Based on further information, a raid was conducted and he was nabbed.”

During interrogation, police said he admitted to sending the messages after seeing similar news reports on television. DCP said, “He wanted to draw attention to himself and sent the messages as a prank. The matter is currently under further investigation.”

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Police said they have beefed up the security in and around the airports and urged the public to not get “alarmed” as the security arrangements around the airports are sufficient.

Meanwhile, the aviation ministry sent an advisory to airlines on the fake bomb threats and urged them to report fake calls, messages, posts etc at the earliest.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu had said that the ministry intends to take strict action against the accused and that the safety of passengers won’t be compromised.

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