Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Monday said life imprisonment to those who make hoax calls or social media posts will be proposed as an amendment to security rules, along with putting such offenders on the no-fly list.
Naidu confirmed that amendments are being planned to aviation security rules as well as the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982. He said the central government is planning to take legislative actions to deal with instances of bomb threats to airlines, which have plagued airport authorities, carriers and flyers over the past week.
“We have another act in place since 1980s, we need to cover the offences on ground and at airports,” he said, adding that the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) is continuously in touch with the home ministry on the situation of bomb threats to flights.
Section 3 of the Act made provisions for life imprisonment and fine if any communication was made “onboard” to affect flight operations. Now, the ministry of civil aviation is proposing to make any such disruption from the ground also punishable by life term.
CNN-News18 had reported exclusively that the central government was proposing an amendment to the law to tackle the menace of hoax calls. At least 100 flights of different airline services received these threats, which later turned out to be hoaxes.
Asked about the terror angle, Naidu refused to comment and said there is no point in doing so without thorough investigation. “It will be a cognisable offence – punishment and penalty – we want to do it as soon as possible. The MoCA (Ministry of Civil Aviation) has sent its inputs to the other ministries for consultation,” he said.
He added: “This is happening over the past week. I want to tell people that whenever there is a threat, we have a strict protocol that we follow with international guidelines.”
According to sources, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Director General RS Bhatti and his BCAS counterpart General Zulfiquar Hasan met Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, who was apprised of the recent hoax calls in domestic and international flights.
Earlier in the day, the MoCA said it is looking for “serious solutions” to curb the menace of bomb hoax threats. “This is something that is being looked into by the aviation regulator…very seriously…they are working towards finding out serious solutions,” said Asangba Chuba Ao, joint secretary in the ministry.
On Sunday (October 20) alone, 25 flights received bomb threats causing hardships to hundreds of passengers and forcing authorities to move scores of planes to isolation bays at airports concerned for detailed checks. Six flights each of IndiGo, Vistara, Air India and Akasa Air, and at least one flight of Air India Express received the threats, as per sources. A handle on social media platform X that had issued bomb threats to some flights was blocked.
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