The CEO of as US-based company was arrested at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) Sunday for the grave offence of making a hoax call regarding the presence of a bomb.

The catch, however, is the passenger's insistence that he hadn't made a call about a "bomb" about "BOM", which the aviation code used for the Mumbai airport. The code comes from the time the Maximum City used to be called Bombay.

The passenger, 45-year-old Vinod Moorjani, was take a flight from Mumbai to Delhi, then take a connecting flight to Rome.

Moorjani claims called the CSIA landline in order to get an update on the departure status of his domestic flight. According to Moorjani, he dialled the airport helpline and asked for "BOM-DEL flight status".

The helpline operator, Moorjani claimed, did not respond adequately and hung up. Hours later, Mumbai Police's Sahar unit, which has jurisdiction over CSIA, placed him under arrest.

The reason was that the helpline operator's account of the phone call was complete different from the passenger's.

According to the woman operator, Moorjani called the helpline and said "bomb hai". The operator claims she then asked the caller to confirm what he had just said but the passenger hung up, following which authorities were informed about the call.

According to a PTI report quoting unnamed airport officials, Moorjani was annoyed with the flight delays at the Mumbai airport and so made the bomb hoax call.

Moorjani , who was arrested on Sunday evening, was produced in court on Monday and was released on bail. He has been booked under IPC sections 506(II) (criminal intimidation), 505(I)(b) (intent to cause fear or alarm to public).

(With inputs from Nagarjun Dwarkanath in Bengaluru and PTI)

WATCH | 1993 Mumbai: When India Today's Newstrack captured moments after blasts