Bomb hoax delays Jet Airways flight, lands lovelorn repeat offender in dock

Ahmedabad: The city police have detained a passenger of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight which was forced to make an emergency landing at the Ahmedabad airport on Monday after a note stating that there were hijackers and a bomb on board was found in the washroom, a police officer said.

An initial probe into the background of Birju Kishore Salla, the man who created the hijack scare on Jet Airways' Mumbai-Delhi flight on Monday, reveals a plot straight from a Bollywood movie with unrequited love as its theme.

Investigators say 37-year-old Salla had reportedly fallen for a Jet Airways employee and had hoped that by doing something that runs the airline to the ground, he would leave the lady jobless and force her to come to him for employment.

"Salla runs property business in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai. His company is registered with the ministry of corporate affairs. Last July, he had picked up a major fight on a Jet Airways flight by claiming that his meal had cockroaches. He somehow wanted to harm Jet so that the lady comes to him for a job. Salla may be of unsound mind," said a senior investigator.

Earlier, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the person responsible for the security threat on the Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight had been identified and should be immediately put on the no-fly list.

Flight 9W 339, which had taken off from Mumbai at 2.55 am with 115 passengers and seven crew members, landed without incident at Ahmedabad around 3.45 am. The Boeing 737-900 plane was parked at a remote bay and all 122 safely deplaned, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

The printed note, in Urdu and English, said the flight had 12 hijackers on board and a bomb in the cargo area and should be flown straight to PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir).

Giving details of what had happened, Ahmedabad Airport Director Manoj Gangal said the flight was allowed to make an emergency landing on the pilot's request.

The bomb disposal squad and the local police conducted a thorough search but found no explosive substance, said Sardarnagar police station inspector H B Zala.