The government has deactivated more than a dozen social media handles that issued hoax bomb threats to airlines and caused disruption.
On Sunday, October 20, around 20 Indian airline flights, including IndiGo, Vistara, Air India, and Akasa Air, got bomb threats, which led to officials taking immediate security measures to avoid safety of passengers. Now in order to combat the bomb threats against flights after a series of hoaxes, the Indian government has now planned to revamp rules in their response since it has led to widespread disruption and delay of flights.
As per a report in The Economic Times, the airport authorities are mulling heightened security screenings of passenger and cargo. There will be additional ladder-point checks of hand luggage before boarding, with the government considering precise assessments of all threat messages so that they do not lead to immediate landing of the aircrafts, and the passengers can continue their journey.
Nonetheless, the intelligence and cyber security agencies are figuring out the origin and people or organisation behind these repeated hoax bomb threats. Amid that, the government is also keen to frame a punitive law in order to tackle such activities undertaken either from Indian soil or overseas, as confirmed by officials. It is also believed that until the agencies find out the real culprits, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought a proposal from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) to make necessary changes to the proposed law. It cannot be ruled out that the repeated bomb threats are hitting the airline industry economically.
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Meanwhile, the BCAS has proposed a five-year imprisonment for anyone who is charged in a hoax bomb threat case. “The MHA has initiated a consultation process with the Ministry of Law & Justice and Civil Aviation to bring in amendments to Aircraft Act, 1934 and Aircraft Rules, 1937,” a source in the government was quoted as saying.
Additionally, as per the government sources, the intelligence and cyber security agencies have found that 90 percent of such threats were from overseas, and the senders used virtual private networks (VPNs) to hide their identities. Hence, the possibility of ‘economic terrorism’ by any people or organisation is also being considered since the airline operators are getting hit hard.
As for the hoax bomb threats originating from the Indian soil, they are being dealt with and the government has suspended and deactivated a couple of social media handles, and arrested a few. The social media handles behind such bomb hoax threats were being “analysed” jointly by cyber security experts, the BCAS and intelligence agencies.
Around 90 bomb threats have been issued to airlines in the past week, and within the existing legal framework, the government authorities are mulling over stricter norms to deal with those responsible.
