A Mumbai-based jeweller who created a hijack scare on board a Jet Airways flight in October last year has become the first person to be put on the ‘National No Fly List’, eight months after it was unveiled.
Incidentally, he was also the first to be booked under the stringent Anti-Hijacking Act, which has replaced the vintage law of 1982.
Birju Kishore Salla (37) was arrested in October following the emergency landing made by the Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways plane at the Ahmedabad airport. The pilot was alerted about a note that mentioned that there were hijackers and a bomb in the cargo area.
The then Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju had advised airlines to put him on the no-fly list, in addition to other statutory criminal action.
Under the revised Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR), a passenger can be considered to be placed under three categories of unruly behaviour, with category three bearing the harshest punishment. Salla has been placed under the third category.
It says that if a passenger’s behaviour is considered life threatening, like affecting the safety of the aircraft, he/she can be banned for up to two years.
Salla is a multi-millionaire jeweller with an office in the Zaveri Bazar area of Mumbai. He owns a flat in a posh locality of the metropolis.
All for love
He had confessed to preparing the note, hoping the threat could make Jet Airways close operations in Delhi. He wanted his girlfriend, who works for Jet in Delhi, to return to Mumbai.
According to the crime branch, the note was a printed note in Urdu and English, asking that the plane be flown straight to POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir). It ended with the words, “Allah is Great”. The reference to POK made investigators suspicious because Pakistan-based terrorists call the area ‘Azad Kashmir’
According to the DGCA, it is the responsibility of Jet Airways now to inform other airlines about the grounding of this particular passenger under the CAR. The DGCA will continue to maintain database of such passengers.
