In the last four days, more than 20 flights of various Indian airlines, including international flights, received bomb threats. Some of them went into emergency mode and landed at the closest airport and re-screened all passengers. While all threat calls turned out to be hoaxes, passengers suffered the inconvenience of having to undergo security checks and lost their precious time while airlines already operating on tight margins incurred heavy losses.
An Air India direct flight from New Delhi to Chicago was diverted to a remote airport at Iqaluit in Canada, while the Singapore Armed Forces scrambled fighter jets for the Air India Express flight to land safely after a bomb threat. Apart from short-term inconvenience to the airlines, the perception of lower air safety would cause long-term imaging issues.
According to preliminary information, a 17-year-old boy, a school dropout from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, allegedly created a handle on X in the name of the friend with whom he had a dispute and posted bomb threats from it. The Mumbai police took the minor into custody.
The Central government is planning to double the deployment of air marshals on sensitive routes. Air marshals are highly trained counter-terror operatives who are covertly placed on civilian flights to deal with possible hijacking attempts. The government is also planning to increase the penalty imposed on the accused.
The government is also considering placing individuals responsible for bomb threat actions on the no-fly list. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security proposed this idea to the Union aviation ministry in June 2024, and the proposal is being seriously considered following the rising threats received in the past week.
Nevertheless, the government should be mindful of its impact on bona fide informers, who wanted to help the authorities by tipping them off. While the fear of law is good, authorities should not make informing them prohibitively costly. The airlines must keep a fine balance between costs and security.
