New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry plans to put in place strict norms to prevent incidents of hoax bomb threats to airlines, including placing the perpetrators on the no-fly list, a senior official said on Thursday.
In four days, more than 20 flights of various Indian airlines received bomb threats, including international flights, and some of them were diverted. Most of the threats have turned out to be hoaxes.
Against this backdrop, the ministry is looking at amending existing rules, including those related to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), in order to ensure stringent punishments are in place for the culprits, the official in the know said.
Placing individuals making hoax bomb threats in the airlines’ no-fly list is one of the proposals being looked at, the official said.
The official also said legal opinions are being gathered with respect to making the changes in the rules.
The provisions being followed in foreign countries to deal with hoax bomb threats are also being examined by the ministry.
Further, the official said that if necessary, legislative amendments will be explored for having a strong deterrent to prevent people from making hoax bomb threats to airlines.
Currently, there are strict norms against unruly passenger behaviour onboard flights but there are no specific provisions under the aviation regulations to deal with instances where a bomb threat has come from outside sources such as social media.
At present, the actions against hoax bomb threat incidents are taken by the police under criminal laws.
The official also said that discussions are going on with home and law ministries while inputs are being gathered from airlines.
“We want rules that can act as a deterrent,” the official said.
On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said law enforcement agencies are actively pursuing all cases of bomb threats against airlines and the government is closely monitoring the situation.
He also condemned any attempt to compromise the safety, security and operational integrity of the aviation sector.
7-8 social media handles suspended for issuing hoax bomb threat to airliners
Over half-a-dozen social media handles that issued hoax bomb threats to multiple Indian airliners this week have been suspended or blocked by cyber security agencies till now, official sources said Thursday.
The sources told PTI that the handles were “analysed” by a joint team of cyber, aviation security and intelligence agencies following which orders were issued to suspend these accounts as they continued to issue “mindless” threats.
About seven-eight social media handles, majority of them on X, have been suspended or blocked since Monday, when these hoax bomb and terrorist attack threats started being sent to virtually all the Indian airliners for both their domestic and international route operations, the sources said.
The agencies have also found some common lines and words used in these fake threats like “bombs”, “blood will spread everywhere”, “explosive devices”, “this is not a joke” and “you will all die” and “bomb rakhwa dia hai” (Hindi for bomb has been placed) among others.
The sources said the agencies, apart from getting police FIRs registered in each such hoax bomb messages case, have enhanced ‘cyber patrolling’ on the social media and the dark web to check for possible linkages or trends where threats are being posted online leading to grounding or diversion of the aircraft.
The online surface is being scratched to find the primary email registration and geographical locations of these threat-issuing handles, some of which are possibly being prompted from overseas locations, the sources said.
These details are being shared with jurisdictional police departments, they said.
Beginning Monday, more than two dozen Indian carriers have been affected by these social media posted threat messages, all of which have come out hoax or false, officials said.
In two cases, fighter jets of Singapore and Canada had to be scrambled to help the Indian planes that were carrying hundreds of passengers.
These fake threats have led to inconveniencing hundreds of passengers and airline crew apart from security agencies. They have taken a heavy toll on airline logistics and operational costs, the officials said.
On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said law enforcement agencies are actively pursuing all cases of bomb threats against airlines and the government is closely monitoring the situation.
A minor boy of 17 years of age from Chhattisgarh has been detained by the Mumbai Police in connection with the hoax bomb threats posted on social media platform X targeting three flights originating from Mumbai on October 14.
