The Hyderabad Police on Thursday arrested a travel agent who sent an e-mail five days ago to the Mumbai police about possible hijack attempts at the Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai airports.
Though it was mentioned the e-mail sender was a woman, the person turned out to be M. Vamshi Krishna, a man. “He promised his girlfriend living in Chennai that he would take her on a jolly trip to Mumbai by flight but had no money to book the ticket,” Hyderabad Police Commissioner M. Mahender Reddy told The Hindu.
While chatting online, he tried to convince her to cancel the trip but she didn’t pay heed to his request. “Unable to explain to girlfriend that he had no money for the trip, Vamshi decided to create a situation so that flights are cancelled,” Mr. Reddy said.
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Vamshi created a fake ticket in his girlfriend's name from Chennai to Mumbai for April 16 and mailed it to her. A day before the scheduled journey, he went to an Internet café in S.R. Nagar and created a fake email id and mailed the Mumbai Police Commissioner.
The e-mail sent by the 'unidentified woman' claimed that “ that a group of 23 people were going to hijack aircraft from Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai airports. what she had heard could be true or untrue, but she chose to inform the authorities as she felt it was her duty to do so as a citizen". The e-mail ended with a line that read, “Don’t try to find me because you won’t be able to".
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Subsequently, special anti-sabotage sweeps were carried out at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Chennai International Airport and Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport since late Saturday night following the e-mail.
Tracking the Internet Protocol address of the e-mail, the Hyderabad Police Commissioner’s Task Force sleuths traced it to the Internet café. They arrested Vamshi Krishna after he admitted to his guilt.