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Air travelers and airlines in India are on the edge of serious concerns. Bombs planted on domestic and international flights on various routes over the last ten days after the bomb threat, have reportedly washed away more than six hundred crores of rupees, as also priceless peace of mind . More than 200 flights were delayed, icancelled or re-routed, including those from Kerala. On Thursday alone 85 Indian aircraft were affected by bomb threats. There was also a recent message that a bomb was planted at Balagavi airport in Karnataka. Luckily all the threats turned out to be hoax. But that does not detract from the gravity of the matter and the intriguing motives of those who work behind it. Although the protocol of the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) that aircraft need not be grounded or rerouted unless the threats are confirmed has come into force, the fact should not be ignored that under the shadow of the threat, passengers, especially foreign tourists, will hesitate to purchase tickets for air travel.
Bomb threats to planes are not a new thing. For long, various terrorist groups and individuals out to spoil the peace and comfort of the country, have been trying to do this. But the pattern of the threat seen in the last ten days is different from what was seen earlier. Therefore, even investigation agencies are groping in the dark except that cases were registered and it reached a few suspects. Threat messages are transmitted through social media, mainly through X (former Twitter). On receipt of a message of threat on October 16 that a bomb was placed on the Bangalore-Delhi Akasa flight, the Delhi police team wrote to the social platform to find out the origin of the message, but till date it could not be traced. In order to dodge detection through IP address, threat accounts are operating using modes like VPN. Following the confirmation that all sources of threat messages were fake, social media firms were approached to find out the hidden parties using fake ids, but the Centre blames them for not co-operating with the investigation. The Union IT ministry also gave a warning that if they do not detect the fake accounts and control them, they would be deemed as being complicit in the crime.
The government and authorities usually claim that we have one of the best detective machinery in the world. And there are quite a good number of investigation experts who are proficient in detecting cyber crimes. The fact that social media platforms do not co-operate or that the threat mongers are using VPN is no justification for the delay in getting at the culprits. It also has to be suspected whether the feeling that the investigation agencies have for some time been lax in tracing those who raise threats or make hate propaganda against certain individuals or groups through social media, has created the impression in the society that even if the culprits commit the heinous crimes they can walk away unpunished. Even if those responsible for earlier bomb threats are detected, our police had shown a knack of declaring them selectively as guilty or mentally ill based on their religion and caste. The authorities have to ask themselves whether they have used a small part of the pressure on the social media firms to take on those criticise the government or support the farmer strikes, in the case of the culprits in bomb threats which put under threat the country’s airline services and the very life of the people.
The airline industry is getting into the whirlpool of bomb threats at a time when the industry is taking off slowly after recovering from the impact of the ban on civil aviation due to the Covid pandemic and the consequent global financial and trade recession. Those behind this menace cannot be ignored by calling them mentally derailed or cyber mischief-makers. Who these merchants of terror that destroy the aviation industry are, and what they aim at should be found out on an urgent basis. The situation forcing the people to travel compromising security is so dangerous – and equally shameful.