More than 275 flights have received bomb threats since October 14 (Photo: Air India)
A 25-year-old unemployed man from the capital of India, New Delhi, has been detained for making fake bomb threats.
According to NDTV, this is the second arrest since the series of threats to airlines started last week.
Delhi Police officials said the man confessed to making the threats to draw attention to himself after seeing reports of similar calls on television.
More than 275 flights have received bomb threats since October 14 and a 17-year-old boy was detained by the Mumbai police last week.
Delhi Police on Saturday said two threatening messages were received from a social media account at the capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport between Friday night and Saturday morning.
A case was registered against these threats and investigation revealed that the account belonged to Shubham Upadhyay, a resident of Rajapuri in Uttamnagar area of West Delhi.
Upadhyay was arrested and upon questioning revealed that he had made the threats to gain attention after watching news reports of similar calls on TV.
The 25-year-old Upadhyay is unemployed and has studied up to 12th standard, police said.
“We assure the public that all necessary safety measures have been taken and there is no threat,” Delhi Police said in a statement. We encourage everyone to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the authorities.’
On October 16, Mumbai police detained a 17-year-old school dropout from Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon for threatening four flights on October 14.
Of the four flights the boy threatened, two were delayed, including an Air India flight from Mumbai to New York that was diverted to New Delhi, and one had to be cancelled.
In an advisory sent to social media platforms on Friday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that fake bomb threats issued to airlines pose a threat to public order and asked them to act against the spread of such misinformation. Take action as soon as possible.
