A desperate 16-year-old boy, trying to prevent his girlfriend from leaving Mumbai, played a prank on Monday by warning authorities of a bomb on the Alitalia, Mumbai-Milan flight AZ 277. The hoax call led to the flight being delayed by over three hours at the Mumbai airport.
Around 1 am, the caller who was later identified as Saneel Shah, tipped off the duty officer of Sahar police station that a passenger on the Alitalia flight was carrying a bomb. He gave details of the baggage containing the bomb.
The police alerted the airport authorities and the aircraft was taken to a secluded place. Some passengers who had boarded the flight as well as the baggage were offloaded from the aircraft. The operation took over an hour before the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad declared it safe. The hoax call triggered a meeting of the Bomb Threat Action Committee, sources said.
Shah then called Alitalia deputy station manager, Nitu Vadera, and said the bomb could be in the baggage of a 12-member student group of the Jamnabai Narsee School (JNS), which was on a UN-sponsored trip to Milan. "The calls were from a single mobile.
So we called one of the students, who identified the caller as classmate Saneel. It seems he wanted to prevent his girlfriend from flying to Milan," said a senior CISF officer.
{{/usCountry}}So we called one of the students, who identified the caller as classmate Saneel. It seems he wanted to prevent his girlfriend from flying to Milan," said a senior CISF officer.
{{/usCountry}}The flight was permitted to leave, only after 12 JNS students and their teacher were grounded. Shah, a resident of Napean Sea Road, wanted to join the trip, but couldn't because his parents had refused permission.
C.K. Chavan, senior police inspector Sahar police station, said, "Shah claims that he was tipped by one of his acquaintance and we are investigating that. We have also asked the mobile service provider to give details and a breakthrough is expected tomorrow."
A case was registered at the Sahar police station.