A couple from the city, Arjun and Swapna, had booked a flight to Kochi on Wednesday night so that they could get engaged in their home town the next day.
But their plans went awry when the cab they had booked to the airport failed to turn up. In a state of panic, they booked another taxi but realised that they would miss their flight which was scheduled to take off at 8.45 p.m.
The two are residents of BTM Layout.
Help from relatives
After frantically calling the carrier’s call centre six times and realising that there was little they could do, they hit upon the idea of delaying the flight, the police said. They allegedly called their relatives in Kerala and asked them to make a hoax bomb call to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) authorities. A family member, using a public phone booth in a village near Kochi, called up the airport at 8.31 p.m., 15 minutes before departure, and informed the authorities that there were explosives on board.
As per protocol, the KIA police and a special squad immediately cordoned off the plane and de-boarded the passengers to a safe zone. A bomb detection and disposal squad verified the passengers on board and scanned all the luggage. The entire exercise went on till 1.30 a.m. before the squad gave the plane an all clear.
Authorities realised that the call was a hoax, and the flight finally took off a little after 3 a.m.
“The airport police figured that it was the handiwork of a mischief monger and suspected that someone who may have otherwise missed the flight could have been involved ,” said N Shivakumara, the jurisdictional Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP).
A preliminary investigation revealed that Arjun and Swapna had made multiple calls to the carrier to find out what would happen had they missed their flight.
Policeman on-board
Coincidentally, Rafiqh, a senior police officer from Kochi, who was in the city for official purposes, was also a passenger on the flight. He helped the city police probe the hoax and sent his team in Kochi to track the call. His team was able to identify the public telephone booth used to make the call in the village where the accused were scheduled to be engaged.
Armed with the information, the police summoned the accused and questioned them for few hours before letting them complete their engagement formalities on humanitarian grounds. “We have booked the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and have summoned them to appear before the police for further investigation after their engagement,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
