Forty-one airports, including in Varanasi, Chennai, Patna and Jaipur, received bomb threat emails on Tuesday, prompting authorities to take emergency measures and conduct hours-long anti-sabotage checks. official sources said. Security was beefed up as agencies searched the airport terminals after the emails were received from the ID exhumedyou888@gmail.com around 12:40 p.m.
Varanasi, Chennai, Patna, Nagpur, Jaipur, Vadodara, Coimbatore and Jabalpur airports were among the airports that received the hoax threats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi on Tuesday, the first time after the Lok Sabha poll results were announced on June 4.
An online group called “KNR” is suspected to be behind these hoax threat emails. The group allegedly sent similar emails to several schools in the National Capital Region of Delhi on May 1, the sources said. The emails the airports received contained virtually the same message: “Hello, there are explosives hidden at the airport. The bombs will explode soon. You will all die.”
The airports put contingency plans into action and carried out anti-sabotage checks based on recommendations from their respective Bomb Threat Assessment Committees, the sources said.
At Chennai airport, a flight carrying 286 passengers to Dubai was delayed due to the hoax threat.
Shortly after receiving the email warning of a bomb on the plane, security forces conducted a thorough search of the flight but found nothing suspicious. The flight was later cleared to continue to its destination.
Jaipur International Airport authorities also conducted an inspection after receiving the bomb threat email. Police and CISF personnel searched the premises but found nothing.
Sources at the Mumbai airport said there was no impact on services as the threat was “non-specific”.
Authorities at Nagpur and Patna airports also conducted thorough searches of their premises after receiving the false threat.
Patna Airport Director Anchal Prakash said, “A bomb threat was received via email at Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport, besides 41 other airports. The Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) meeting was convened and it was determined that the threat was non-specific.”
All airports reported that the threat was a hoax and that passenger movements could be kept unhindered to the best of their ability, the sources said.
On Monday, Delhi airport received an email around 9:30 a.m. warning of a bomb threat on a flight to Dubai, but inspections found nothing suspicious.
Similar fake emails were also sent to several airports in April, and Indian cybersecurity agencies are scrambling to trace the origins of these emails sent from abroad.
