Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 24: With still no clue on the hoax bomb threats to the flights operated by the Indian carriers, the problem has kept increasing by every passing day as at least 70 more flights receiving the bomb threats on Thursday.
The sources said around 20 flights each of Air India, Vistara, and IndiGo have got the threats while Akasa Air has got the threats for about 14 flights on Thursday. In the last nine days, nearly 250 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received the bomb threats.
An Akasa Air spokesperson said some of its flights operating on October 24 have received security alerts. “The Akasa Air Emergency Response teams are monitoring the situation and are in touch with the security and regulatory authorities. We are following all safety and security procedures in coordination with local authorities,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said the government plans to take legislative actions to deal with instances of bomb threats to airlines, including placing perpetrators of such threats in the no-fly list.
The Delhi Police have registered eight separate First Information Reports (FIR)s in connection with bomb threats to more than 90 domestic and international flights over the past eight days. Investigations are ongoing with heightened security measures to identify the source of these threats and ensure the safety of passengers and crew members in all airlines.
The spate of bomb threats targeting Indian airlines reflects a worrying pattern that impinges upon the safety of travellers and crew members. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology held a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday with officials from airlines and social media giants X and Meta regarding the hoaxes, which have delayed or cancelled over 100 flights.
A group of tech experts is suspected of targeting Indian airlines with hoax bomb threats, according to the initial analysis conducted by central cyber agencies who also said no activity has been detected from the IP addresses used to send the threats through social media handles and emails. The exit nodes of these addresses are VPNs.
According to senior government officials, despite evidence that VPNs were used, very limited support has been received from intermediaries. The relevant companies have been asked to provide details to trace the actual IP addresses. “While there are no activities on the IP addresses being tracked, initial analysis indicates that this has been carried out by a group of multiple tech experts who are knowledgeable about the processes of technical tracing and tracking of handles and email IDs,” the officials said.
On Wednesday, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology blasted social media platform X through which most of these hoaxes were circulated. The platforms were also suggested to use Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based mechanism to block any accounts that send out bulk messages/posts about bombs.
According to a senior police officer, the threats messages were received through anonymous posts on X which were later suspended by the authorities. The officer said three accounts on social media platform X have been found involved in posting threat messages to fights.
The first case was registered on October 16 following a bomb threat received via X, targeting a Bengaluru-bound Akasa Air flight. The aircraft, carrying over 180 passengers, was forced to return to the national capital.
The police wrote to social media platform X the next day seeking details of the accounts that posted threatening messages but the force was not able to get the details of the user’s ID or domain. “It was suspected that the handler used VPN (Virtual private network) or dark web browser to set up the accounts on X and then posted the messages from more than one account,” the officials said.