A drunken youth raised alarm at the domestic terminal of the Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) on Saturday morning with a bomb scare that turned out to be a hoax. Police said that the 24-year-old man, who raised the false alarm, was upset over his troubled relationship with a woman. He is now in police custody.
The prank sent security officials into a tizzy, who scanned two aircraft, as the Home Minister, Amit Shah, was to arrive in Telangana to launch a membership drive on Saturday.
The youth identified by the police as KV Vishwanathan, an employee with a private firm, was heading to Chennai from Hyderabad on an Indigo flight but had been consuming alcohol at the airport bar from 1:30 am until 6:30 am. The youth, after coming out from the smoking room, approached a CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) officer claiming to have information about bombs being placed in Truejet flight 2T201 and Indigo flight 6E-188 that were to take off.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Shamshabad, Prakash Reddy, said that the call proved a hoax after the CISF personnel and bomb disposal teams searched the planes.
According to the police, Vishwanathan, who was in a drunken state and was in depression due to love issue.
Vishwanathan, a native of Chennai, was soon taken into custody by the RGIA airport police, which is under the Cyberabad Commissionerate in Hyderabad. The police have registered a case under the suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.
Airport officials told TNM that there was were no disruption to the flight service apart from the Indigo flight that was supposed to take off at 8 am; it finally made the departure after 10:30 am.
Earlier this year in May, the Hyderabad police received a call via 100 around 9.30 pm, from a man who claimed that a bomb had been placed at the Sairam theatre at Malkajgiri area in the city. The call was made just before the movie show was about to begin. The police soon swung into action, deploying the bomb squad and sniffer dogs. No bombs were, however, found after the police conducted a thorough search of the premises.
IANS inputs