New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Vikram Dev Dutt has been transferred to the Ministry of Coal as Secretary, in the wake of bomb threats to Indian carriers. A Joint Secretary-level official is likely to take his place.
Indian airlines have received close to 70 bomb threats in less than a week. On Saturday officials from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) had a meeting with the CEOs of different airline operators in the civil aviation ministry at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan. The CEOs were briefed about the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for tackling threats which cause fear and inconvenience to passengers and also losses for the airlines as they end up diverting flights and have to cancel and reschedule them, The New Indian Express reported.
According to reports from the civil aviation sector, nearly 30 bomb threats were made to various flights on Saturday.
“The Internet Protocol (IP) addressed from the threats today and the ones earlier this week have been traced to London, Germany, Canada and the US. However, it is possible the Virtual Private Networks (VPN) were used by some to hide their real locations,’’ the report added quoting a source.
Meanwhile, the government is considering framing a punitive law to deal with such activities undertaken either from Indian soil or overseas. Till the agencies find 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. The report said quoting a government source, “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.”
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. As for hoax bomb threats, which originated from Indian soil, they 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, the report added quoting sources.