Hyderabad: The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad, received a fresh bomb threat on Tuesday, December 9.
The airport authority received an email which claimed that a bomb had been planted on a flight heading to the United States. The sender reportedly claimed that the explosive would go off if 1 million dollars were not paid.
Security personnel from CISF and airport security units swung into action, launching intensive checks across the terminal, cargo zones, parking areas, and all aircraft scheduled for international departures.
As part of security measures, the passengers were subject to additional security checks.
As per preliminary investigation, the email was allegedly sent by an individual identifying himself as Jasper from the United States.
Cybercrime teams have begun tracing the origin and authenticity of the email to determine whether it is a genuine threat or part of a series of hoax messages targeting airports.
Authorities stated that while no suspicious object has been found so far, security has been heightened across all sensitive zones of the airport.
An official statement from the airport management is awaited. RGIA Police are investigating.
Previous incident
On December 7, the Hyderabad airport received three bomb threat emails. The emails were sent on late Sunday night, targeting British Airways’ (BA 277) from Heathrow, Lufthansa’s (LH 752) from Frankfurt and IndiGo’s 6E 7178 from Kannur.
Airport sources said all the flights landed safely. The two international flights landed here during the early hours of Monday. “Standard safety protocols were initiated for all three aircraft,” sources said.
Standard safety protocols include isolation of the aircraft, screening of baggage and passengers, keeping fire engines ready and pressing sniffer dogs into services, among others, sources added.
Last week, the RGIA received bomb threat emails for the Dubai-Hyderabad Emirates flight and IndiGo’s Madina–Hyderabad and Sharjah-Hyderabad flights separately. Madina–Hyderabad was diverted to Ahmedabad airport.
(With inputs from PTI)
