Hoax bomb threat to airliners: 7-8 social media handles suspended

New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) Over half-a-dozen social media handles that issued hoax bomb threats to multiple Indian airliners this week have been suspended or blocked by cyber security agencies till now, official sources said Thursday.

The sources told PTI that the handles were "analysed" by a joint team of cyber, aviation security and intelligence agencies following which orders were issued to suspend these accounts as they continued to issue "mindless" threats.

About seven-eight social media handles, majority of them on X, have been suspended or blocked since Monday, when these hoax bomb and terrorist attack threats started being sent to virtually all the Indian airliners for both their domestic and international route operations, the sources said.

The agencies have also found some common lines and words used in these fake threats like "bombs", "blood will spread everywhere", "explosive devices", "this is not a joke" and "you will all die" and "bomb rakhwa dia hai" (Hindi for bomb has been placed) among others.

The sources said the agencies, apart from getting police FIRs registered in each such hoax bomb messages case, have enhanced 'cyber patrolling' on the social media and the dark web to check for possible linkages or trends where threats are being posted online leading to grounding or diversion of the aircraft.

The online surface is being scratched to find the primary email registration and geographical locations of these threat-issuing handles, some of which are possibly being prompted from overseas locations, the sources said.

These details are being shared with jurisdictional police departments, they said.

Beginning Monday, more than two dozen Indian carriers have been affected by these social media posted threat messages, all of which have come out hoax or false, officials said.

In two cases, fighter jets of Singapore and Canada had to be scrambled to help the Indian planes that were carrying hundreds of passengers.

These fake threats have led to inconveniencing hundreds of passengers and airline crew apart from security agencies. They have taken a heavy toll on airline logistics and operational costs, the officials said.

On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said law enforcement agencies are actively pursuing all cases of bomb threats against airlines and the government is closely monitoring the situation.

A minor boy of 17 years of age from Chhattisgarh has been detained by the Mumbai Police in connection with the hoax bomb threats posted on social media platform X targeting three flights originating from Mumbai on October 14. PTI