Security measures beefed up following hoax bomb threats against airplanes

Guwahati, Oct. 27: Bomb threats to airlines of late have become a serious cause for concern as the flight schedules in the country have gone haywire due to such threats, but fortunately, all these calls have been found to be hoax ones.

Security sources told The Assam Tribune that though no terrorist outfit has so far planted a bomb on or hijacked an aircraft with prior warning, no one can take chances with the lives of hundreds of passengers at stake.

Sources said that in case of all the bombings and hijacking incidents, the terrorists involved succeeded because of the surprise element and they often took special measures to breach the security. But no one issued prior threats to commit such a crime.

Sources, however, said that no one can take a chance and whenever such a threat is received, all the passengers had to be de-boarded and the aircraft has to be thoroughly checked before resuming the flight operations.

They said thorough checking of the aircraft takes hours and that affects the other flights and thus, the entire aviation sector gets hit. In 13 days, more than 300 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats.

Sources said some mischief mongers are trying to harm the Indian aviation sector at a time when all the airlines are feeling the pressure of extra passengers due to the festive season and efforts are on to trace out the culprits.

"There have been instances when more than a hundred flights received bomb threats and, in such cases, we can take it a bit easy as it is impossible to plant bombs in so many flights. But when only a few flights receive such threats, no one can take a risk," they added.

Asked why the mischief mongers could not be nabbed, sources said that in most cases, the dark net or proxy servers were used to make calls and those are difficult to detect. But all the security agencies are on the job to trace out the culprits.

Sources also expressed the hope that sooner or later, the culprits would be traced. They also urged upon the passengers not to worry as adequate security measures have been taken to prevent any attack on flights.

- By R Dutta Choudhury