NEW DELHI: A young resident of Kolkata was deplaned from a Mumbai-bound aircraft at the city’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Airport on Monday morning after he ‘joked’ with friends about terrorists being on the plane.

The latest case of a sick terror joke on a flight — always a bad idea, especially post 9/11 — played out when about 21-year-old Poddar had boarded Jet Airways ’ 9W 472 with four to five friends to fly to Mumbai.

“After taking his seat, he covered his face with a handkerchief and started sending WhatsApp messages from his phone. A co-passenger sitting next to Poddar got suspicious given his behaviour of covering the face and read the message Poddar was keying in on his phone. One of them read ‘Terrorist on flight. I destroy women’s hearts’,” said a senior security official.

The co-passenger, who was not part of Poddar’s group, informed the cabin crew who in turn informed the pilot. “The pilot told the airline security and the Central Industrial Security Force was informed about Poddar. A CISF team immediately took custody of Poddar and made him get off the aircraft,” said the official.

Poddar’s baggage was also offloaded and re-examined. “The baggage did not have anything suspicious. Poddar said he was joking with his friends. He was handed over to the Kolkata police,” said the official.

The Jet flight, which had a scheduled departure time of 9.15 am and had 160 passengers on board, finally took off after a delay of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Read this story in Marathi



In Video: Kolkata: Jet Airways passenger held for 'threatening to blow up plane'