HYDERABAD: The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) has received more than 30 hoax bomb threat emails over the past three months, but the police have been unable to identify the source, despite multiple investigations.
While six arrests were made this year, the location of those behind the flurry of hoax emails still unknown. The police have made limited progress as far as zeroing in on the hoaxers is concerned.
Shamshabad Deputy Commissioner of Police B Rajesh said six hoaxers were traced and arrested in Gujarat, while acknowledging that several other complaints remain unresolved.
Senior police officials said tracing the origin of the emails has proved difficult, largely due to the use of anonymous, privacy-focused email services. Such platforms allow accounts to be created without personal details such as names, phone numbers or addresses. In several cases, the accounts were accessed through browsers without persistent log-ins, leaving little server-side data for investigators to work with.
The investigation has also been slowed by the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, which route internet traffic through multiple servers, often outside India, masking the sender’s actual IP address.
Officials said this layering makes digital tracking time-consuming and, in many cases, inconclusive.
Most hoax threats sent to RGIA customer support
Most of the threat emails were sent to RGIA’s customer support email ID, automatically triggering security alerts and emergency response protocols at the airport. However, repeated activation of these procedures has not translated into proportionate progress in identifying those responsible.
In August, police arrested a woman from Chennai in Ahmedabad for allegedly sending two hoax threat emails to RGIA following a dispute with her partner. She was traced after investigators issued a Prisoner Transit Warrant. Police said she had sent the emails in her boyfriend’s name after the relationship ended.
In an earlier case in 2017, a 32-year-old Hyderabad-based travel agent was arrested for sending a hoax plane hijack email that led to heightened security at airports in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Police said he had sent the email to Mumbai police after he was unable to afford a trip suggested by his girlfriend.
Despite these isolated arrests, police admit that most recent hoax threats remain unsolved, highlighting continuing gaps in tracking and preventing such emails.