Published Jun 24, 2024 | 3:27 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 24, 2024 | 5:34 PM
Kalaburagi airport.
The Kalaburagi airport received a bomb threat via email on Monday, 24 June, which turned out to be a hoax after a thorough search operation, police said.
Bomb disposal and dog squads were immediately pressed into action on the airport premises, they said. It is also reported that the Chennai International Airport and the Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad received hoax bomb threats on Monday.
According to police, the chief security officer received the email claiming that pipe bombs were placed in several airports across the country, especially in bathrooms.
The police along with other security agencies carried out anti-sabotage checks. After an extensive search it (the threat email) was declared a hoax, the official told PTI adding the threat email did not specifically mention Begumpet airport but warned several airports in the country.
Kalaburagi Police Commissioner Chethan R told PTI that the Airport Director Chilaka Mahesh received an email from an anonymous ID this morning claiming that explosives had been planted inside the airport premises.
“As soon as we received information about a bomb threat email at Kalaburagi domestic airport, a bomb disposal squad was dispatched. All the passengers on the flight (which landed from Bengaluru) were de-boarded,” he said.
All the airport staff and passengers were shifted to a safer place while an intensive and thorough search operation was carried out, he said.
After hours of search operation, the police declared that the threat was a hoax as no “suspicious” object was found.
Mahesh said a thorough search operation was carried out by the bomb disposal squad and security agencies..
“An email was received at 6.54 am claiming five bombs were kept in the bathroom of the terminal building. Immediately, we alerted the state mechanism, bomb disposal squad, state police, central intelligence bureau…we also conducted a bomb threat assessment meeting and immediately, we vacated all the passengers from the building,” Mahesh PTI.
“As soon as the flight landed from Bengaluru, it was pushed into an isolation bay and all passengers and their luggage were also screened and taken via the operational gate,” he said.
The Kalaburagi airport in #Karnataka received a bomb threat via email on Monday and a search operation is on according to local police.
Bomb disposal and dog squads are on the job at the airport premises.
Kalaburagi Police Commissioner Chethan R told PTI that the Airport… pic.twitter.com/zXV1GsAxQc
— South First (@TheSouthfirst) June 24, 2024
Recently, several airports in the country have been getting hoax bomb threats.
A hoax bomb threat was made with regard to an Air Arabia flight scheduled to leave for Sharjah from the Calicut International Airport on 22 June, leading to the aircraft being grounded while the bomb detection squad of the police inspected it, airport sources said.
A 27-year-old man hailing from Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district was arrested for making a hoax bomb threat to a Mumbai-bound Indigo Airlines flight recently, the police said.
The arrested person, identified as V Prasanna of Thiruvaiyaru, was picked by a team of officials from the Cyber Crime Police Station of Central Crime Branch, an official release said.
The accused person had made the hoax threat to the Customer Service Centre of the airline in Chennai through a chat on 18 June, claiming a bomb had been placed in a Chennai-Mumbai flight.
Additionally, 41 airports received bomb threat emails on 18 June, prompting authorities to scramble contingency measures and carry out anti-sabotage checks that lasted hours, and each of them was found to be a hoax, official sources said.
Security was beefed up as agencies swept the airport terminals after the emails were received around 12.40 pm from the ID exhumedyou888@gmail.com.
The airports in Varanasi, Chennai, Patna, Nagpur, Jaipur, Vadodara, Coimbatore and Jabalpur were among those that received the hoax threats.
(With PTI inputs)
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