Scare in Skies: Alarming rise in hoax bomb calls

It is confounding. It is extremely worrisome. Why are the Indian airlines being bombarded with a spate of phone calls these days? It was unnerving to watch as many as 25 flights of airlines getting bomb threats on Sunday alone. With the airlines mandated to take any threat call as very serious, flight delays, disruptions and and even cancellations are normal, which trigger excruciating troubles for thepassengers. Their schedules, be it office appointments, recruitments, business engagements, or medical urgencies or family events, get disrupted or even missed entirely. We have been witnessing untold hardships to thousands of passengers. For the airlines, Elaborate and detailed procedures kick in as per protocols. The disruption causes enormous financial losses and loss of repute. They have to desperately scramble to make alternative arrangements, which are hard to come by. Airport authorities immediately swing into action, tow away the threatened flights to isolation bays and carry out elaborate checks under the eyes of technical and explosives experts.

Generally, psychologists attribute hoax calls to a variety of motivations, including: Grudge against a former employer, for example, or any person aboard the flight; thrill of executing such a huge prank that gets widespread attention. Prank callers could be those mentally disturbed individuals seeking attention, or those seeking a feeling of power and achievement in seeing the full-blown effect of their hoax threats whose consequences do not matter at all to these self-centered individuals craving for sheer pleasure. They want to prove to themselves to be worthy of something, derive anonymous pleasure in causing so much discomfort to others. The more the number of victims the greater the amount of their pleasure at getting away with such pranks. The thrill of pulling off such pranks is not limited to adults. Children are also found seeking to fool others. A 17-year-old boy was taken into custody in Mumbai for threats to four flights, including three international flights.

Normally, one hears of hoax bomb calls made to business establishments and shopping malls. Railways do received such calls. A security drill has to be performed and safety would have to be confirmed. The hardships to all those concerned in the case of such calls landing at airlines are many times greater. Flights if they are airborne would have to be re-routed to nearest airports to carryout safety checks. It is agonising for flyers who have planned their onward journeys or are going on essential engagements. Over the past one week, nearly 100 flights operating in Indian skies have received bomb threats, sending airlines, passengers and security agencies into a tizzy.

Think of the havoc in the country, now one of world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, with over 28,000 flights a week. The total number of aircraft stands at 771. In this modern age of communications, most advanced cyber and snooping technologies at hand, that the authorities or airlines are not able to zero in on the pranksters in real-time is worrisome. The spate of calls does make one to suspect if there is any method to such madness. No country in the world has received so many hoax calls as India, of late. As such, it is natural for commoners and security agencies alike to suspect any malicious intent behind these calls. Under Chapter 22 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), hoax calls qualify for categorisation as criminal intimidation which entails fire or jail up to 7 years or both. It is little re-assuring to learn that the government is cognisant of the alarming issue. The government has not only to award stringent punishment to pranksters, it has also to give wide publicity about its capabilities to track any caller. It is time government actions reassure people that they can fly without any fear and, in fact, fly even more.