A hoax call saying that there was a bomb at a Delhi-Pune SpiceJet flight yesterday, which had delayed the evening flight by several hours, was made to ensure that two youths can spend some more time with their girlfriends, who were flying on that flight. This was revealed by Delhi Police after arresting the person who had made the phone call to the call centre of the airline.
On Friday, 13th January 2023, Delhi Police arrested British Airways trainee ticketing agent named Abhinav Prakash for placing the fake bomb call to the SpiceJet Call Center at IGI Airport. The police said that Abhinav Prakash made the hoax call after two of his childhood friends convinced him to do so. His two friends wanted to delay or cancel the flight their girlfriends were travelling on, and that’s why they had devised the plan to make the hoax bomb call. On Thursday, SpiceJet received a call that said that there is a bomb on the Delhi-Pune flight. It was later declared a hoax.
According to the police, 24-year-old Abhinav Prakash, a resident of Dwarka Sector 22, has been working as a trainee with British Airways at DLF Qutub Plaza Gurugram for the last seven months after receiving a diploma in the tour and travels from IGNOU in 2020. Police were able to nab him because he had used his own phone to make the fake call.
During questioning, he revealed that two of his childhood friends, Rakesh alias Bunty and Kunal Sehrawat, who recently went on a sightseeing tour to Manali, got acquainted with two girls there. Both girls were scheduled to go to Pune on Spicejet Airlines aircraft SG-8938 on January 12. “His friends told him that they wanted to spend some more time with their girlfriends and instigated the accused to find out a plan to somehow delay their departure from Delhi,” said the DCP of IGI Airport.
Accordingly, the three devised a malevolent plot to make a false bomb call at Spicejet Airlines call centre, with the ulterior purpose of having the flight cancelled or at least delayed. The accused dialled Spicejet Airline’s customer service number from his own cellphone number and informed them that “there is a bomb in flight No. SG-8938.”
A press release by Delhi police said, “The accused person to boost their false bravado contacted the girls who were onboard and when they came to know that the flight has been delayed/stopped, they even celebrated the execution of their malevolent act”
When the news of the arrest of Abhinav Prakash reached Kunal Sehrawat and Rakesh alias Bunty, they fled away from their addresses and are presently absconding. Police said that sincere efforts are being made to trace and arrest them.
The SpiceJet flight SG-8938 was scheduled to depart for Pune at 5.35 pm on 12 January, but after the call centre of SpiceJet received the threat message, they alerted the Airport Operations Control Centre (AOCC). AOCC then informed Security Operations Control Centre about the bomb threat message. When the call had come, no passengers had boarded the aircraft, and the Boeing 737 aircraft was thoroughly checked following a complete security drill.
The search went on for several hours, but nothing was found onboard the flight. After that, the threat was declared a hoax call, the passengers boarded the flight and it finally took off.
The flight which was scheduled to take off at 5:35 PM and land in Pune at 7:45 PM finally took off from IGI Airport at 1:43 PM. The flight reached Pune at 3:30 AM, according to the flight tracker website flightradar24.
Therefore, just because two youths wanted to spend some more time with two girls, they caused inconvenience to the passengers of the flight by delaying it for several hours and kept the security agencies busy past midnight who were searching for the non-existent bomb.
