‘I will blow up flight’, reads hoax email; cops suspect delay tactic

According to the Sahar police, the email landed in the inbox of the official email account of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport Limited at 3.20am on Sunday. The email id is given to the fliers so that they can give feedback about the airport. The single-line email, which was sent from a Proton Mail account, read, I will blow up flight 6E 6045

Mumbai: A case has been registered against unidentified persons after an email, threatening to blow up an IndiGo flight was sent to the Mumbai Airport authorities on Sunday, leading to a delay of several hours.

IndiGo, India's largest passenger carrier, is the sole airline operating in the country to report profits consistently. (Agency Photo)

According to the Sahar police, the email landed in the inbox of the official email account of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport Limited at 3.20am on Sunday. The email id is given to the fliers so that they can give feedback about the airport. The single-line email, which was sent from a Proton Mail account, read, “I will blow up flight 6E 6045.”

The airport authorities immediately contacted the airlines and confirmed that a flight with that serial number was scheduled to depart for Ahmedabad in a few hours. The flight was thoroughly searched and nothing suspicious was found, after which it was cleared for take-off.

“We have registered a case of criminal intimidation and statements conducing to public mischief under the Indian Penal Code, and tracing and identifying the sender of the email,” said senior police inspector Sanjay Govilkar, Sahar police station.

The police are also examining the passenger list of the IndiGo flight to see if anyone may have had reason to purposely delay the flight or to cause inconvenience to someone who was to be on board the flight, officers said.

An officer who is part of the investigation added that tracing the accused might turn out to be more challenging and time-consuming than it is in the case of more widely used email service providers.

“Proton Mail is an end-to-end encrypted email service provider that is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The encryption makes it difficult to trace the source and while we will be sending a diplomatic request to them seeking details, their servers are not based on Indian soil and there is no compulsion on them to follow requests issued under our laws,” the officer said.