NEW DELHI: Even as the intelligence and cyber security agencies are grappling to ascertain the origin and people or organisation behind the recent repeated hoax bomb threats to airlines in India and their actual intent, the government is considering of framing a punitive law to deal with such activities undertaken either from Indian soil or overseas, officials said on Saturday.
The officials said that till the agencies find out the real culprits behind such activities, which are hitting India very hard economically, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought a proposal from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) concerning the provisions in the proposed law.
Noting that the BCAS has proposed a five-year imprisonment for those, who would be charged in hoax bomb threat cases, a source in the government said, “The MHA has initiated a consultation process with the Ministry of Law & Justice and Civil Aviation to bring in amendments to Aircraft Act, 1934 and Aircraft Rules, 1937.”
The sources said the intelligence and cyber security agencies have found that 90 per cent of such recent calls originated from overseas and since the senders of such threats used virtual private networks (VPNs) to conceal their identities, the possibility of ‘economic terrorism’ by people or organisation inimical to India is also being looked into, as these threats have a huge financial implications on the airline operators.
The sources said, as far as those hoax bomb threats, which originated from Indian soil, are being firmly dealt with, as the government has suspended and deactivated over a dozen social media handles that issued hoax bomb threats and even arrested a few. The social media handles were “analysed” by a joint team of cyber security experts, the BCAS and intelligence agencies, they added.
Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours today 11 flights received bomb threats, which went on to add to the long list of hoax calls to airlines (50) this week and within the existing legal framework the civil aviation ministry and authorities are putting in place stricter norms to deal with the situation.