Another hoax call threatens to blow up Kolkata-Guwahati flight

Security at the Netaji Subhash Chandra International Airport went into a tizzy when a woman called up at the Air India counter saying a bomb would explode in the flight. It was around 8.20 am when the Air India Control received the telephone, where the mysterious woman said a bomb were fixed there to blow up the Kolkata-Guwahati AI729 flight on air.

The boarding passes were still not distributed for that 9.30 am flight, as the bomb squad and huge contingent of security personnel were rushed in the aircraft. There were 114 passengers, who were supposed to get the flight waited anxiously.

However, police said, no bombs were recovered from the flight as it might be prank committed by the caller.

A week ago, two anonymous calls, reached different police stations and threatened to blow up the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport within a few minutes.

In the incidents, the recipient of the first call was Lalbazar – the headquarter of the Kolkata Police, where the phone had rung around 1.24 am on Wednesday, after receiving which a male voice threatened to blow up the Kolkata airport, but the person soon hung up the call.

The second call was received by Bidhannagar Commissionerate at Salt Lake, which is responsible for looking after airport. The call rang at around 9.20 am on Wednesday where the male voice threatened to explode the airport within a few minutes, and soon hung up the call in the same fashion.

“It was a hoax call on Tuesday, just like last week. We have started the investigation,” said an investigating officer.

The police investigated those earlier incidents and found the source of the call was from Dankuni in Hooghly. Later, police detained a person called Arunabha Sinha, who dialled ‘100’ to call up the police and gave a threat to blow up the airport.

In Kolkata police headquarter – Lalbazar – received the call, which was made from the number 36151*****. The male voice gave another number (869787****) to the control room saying that it was Arshad’s number and the aforementioned person will blow up the airport and urged the police to start a probe immediately to stop the devastation.

After the Dhaka terror attack in July where an Indian girl working for a bank was also killed, Kolkata Airport had beefed up vigil.