india

Updated: May 06, 2019 07:25 IST

The number of hoax calls received at airports has more than doubled in the wake of the February 14 Pulwama attack and the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, three officials familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified.

One of them, an officer with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which provides security at most airports, said an average of 5-6 hoax calls are being received every month, compared to just two a few months ago. He said all calls are taken seriously. According to CISF, which provides security to 61 of the 100 operational airports in the country, about two dozen hoax calls are received every year. This year, the number has already crossed 24, the agency said.

Callers could be someone who wants to settle scores with someone else, a passenger who has been ill-treated by an airline, or just a prankster.

Sample this: A 30-year-old with mental illness was so consumed by his hatred of Pakistan after the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) attacked a CRPF convoy, killing 40 Indian troopers, that he placed an empty bag inside a dustbin near Terminal 3 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on February 20 and made a call. Officials who deal with the terror threats in agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau (IB), state police forces, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, and Railway Protection Force (RPF) said that the frequency of “hoax” or “mischievous” calls, emails, tweets or handwritten letters usually increases after any terror attack because of paranoia among people.

“Almost 80% of the alerts received in such times are usually bogus, but they increase the workload of security forces, bomb squads, dog units and the intelligence agencies. Every alert is checked properly as nobody wants to take a risk in case something happens,” said a senior IB officer.

A third official, who also works for CISF, said that at sensitive installations such as airports, the entire operation is stopped to ensure there is no breach of security, if any such call is received.

“Whenever a threat call is received, a bomb threat assessment committee is formed and they categorise it into specific or non-specific [threat]. If it is specific, every part of the airport is put on alert and the flight concerned is vacated and baggage of the passengers is checked again. In non-specific cases also, the entire airport is sanitised,” he said. In March, a Singapore-bound flight from Mumbai was escorted by two F-16 jets from the Singapore Air Force, after a caller claimed there was a bomb in the plane. The flight ultimately reached its destination safely and the bomb threat was turned to be a hoax. The caller was an Australia-based, non-resident Indian (NRI) allegedly upset at how his family had been treated by the airline.

Experts say stringent punishment is necessary to check the rising trend of prank calls.

“Once a call is received, security personnel cannot take a chance and will do the drill. The only way to stop this is to investigate the case and ensure maximum punishment for the accused. In some cases, the accused need to be booked under Aircraft Act which has provision for stringent punishment,” said Arvind Ranjan, former director general of CISF.

If a suspect is convicted under the Indian Penal Code, the maximum punishment is two to three years but under the Aircraft Act, it can go up to life.