KOCHI: With four bomb hoaxes reported on flights from Kochi airport in three days, the police have started attempting to collect details of two X handles which were involved in three such threats. Nedumbassery police have approached the social media platform regarding the false messages sent to flight operators on Saturday and Sunday.
According to the police, the first message received on the X handle of Alliance Air was from an account named adamlanza111, claiming to have placed bombs on its Kochi-Bengaluru flight on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, two threats were issued to the X handle of Akasa Air, claiming that 12 persons carrying bombs were on six of its flights. The hoax was sent from the X account schizophrenia111.
“These two accounts were involved in a majority of the hoaxes received by various flight operators across India. We have approached the platform X, seeking details of these two accounts. The IP address of the device used for issuing the threats has been sought.
We suspect the messages were sent by the same person. Also, it is suspected that the accused used a virtual private network (VPN) to access the X account and issue the threats. Most likely, the X accounts were created and threats were issued via mobile phones,” a police officer said.
The police will coordinate with other state police forces.“Over 70 flights operating from all major airports in the country received bomb hoaxes last week. Cases have been registered for false bomb threats in other states as well. We are looking to collect information from other state police forces. Also, we are checking similar threats issued to airline companies in the past to know more about the pattern.
As we suspect the usage of VPN in posting threats on X, there is the possibility of someone within the country being behind the act,” the officer said.
On receiving the hoaxes, a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) was convened to assess the situation and the threat was classified as “non-specific”. On Monday, a passenger was detained after he told security persons that he was carrying a bomb during the security check.