The man, Animesh Mandal (44), is a deputy superintendent-rank IB official posted in Nagpur. A man who was arrested for allegedly sharing a hoax bomb alert on an IndiGo flight from Nagpur to Kolkata last month has reportedly turned out to be an officer of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
Animesh Mandal (44) is a deputy superintendent-rank IB official posted in Nagpur, citing the police. The police claim that he provided false information that forced the flight with 187 passengers onboard to make an emergency landing on November 14.
Mandal allegedly told the crew of the IndiGo flight after it took off that there was a bomb on the plane, following which the flight was diverted to Raipur. After a thorough search, the information was found to be baseless. Mandal was arrested by Raipur Police under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 351 (4) (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) and provisions of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.
Mandal’s lawyer, Faizal Rizvi, however, claims that his client is innocent. He claims that after Mandal boarded the flight, he got information from his source about a bomb. “Why did the police not disclose immediately that he is an IB official?” the lawyer asked while talking to reporters.
Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh that police informed the IB immediately after he was detained. Singh added that Mandal was arrested only after a joint team of local police and IB interrogated him and found the input shared by him to be fake. “Hence, he was arrested as per the law,” the police officer told, adding that his act created panic, endangering the lives of passengers and crew members.
Hoax bomb threats
Airlines in India received 719 hoax bomb threat messages in 2024 alone, taking the total number of such threats to 809 in the last five years, government data tabled in the Parliament has revealed.
“Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has information of a total of 809 hoax bomb threats received by airlines since 2020,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on December 9. The minister said that the civil aviation security regulator, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, has mandated robust protocols for handling such threats. He also added that a detailed contingency plan called the Bomb Threat Contingency Plan (BTCP) is in place to handle such threats.
