NEW DELHI: In the first conviction under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 (amended), a special NIA court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the remainder of his entire life for making a hoax hijack threat on a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on businessman Birju Kishore Salla, who had planted a hijack threat letter.
In 2017, Salla had left a note onboard a Jet flight bound for Delhi from Mumbai, warning that there were hijackers and explosives onboard. According to the chargesheet, the accused, did it in a “planned manner”.
Of the Rs 5 crore fine, the court directed Salla to pay Rs 1 lakh each to the pilot and co-pilot of flight.
The court directed Rs 50,000 be paid to two air hostesses and Rs 25,000 each to all passengers on board the flight for the misery they suffered due to Salla, NIA said. There were 115 passengers and seven crew members aboard the flight.
After the note was recovered, the flight made an emergency landing at the Ahmedabad airport on October 30, 2017.
An NIA chargesheet filed on January 23, 2017, had stated that the accused had typed out the threat on his laptop at his Mumbai office on the day of his flight and got a print from the office printer, which he later put in the tissue paper box in the plane’s toilet.
During the investigation, clinching evidence regarding the preparation of the threat note and its placement on the plane was collected, said a senior NIA official.