Man held for hoax bomb alert on IndiGo flight was IB officer: Police

Last month, the suspect allegedly alerted the pilot of a Kolkata-bound IndiGo flight from Nagpur, prompting the flight to be diverted to Raipur

Raipur: The man arrested for sounding out a hoax bomb alert on a Kolkata-bound IndiGo flight on November 14 was an Intelligence Bureau official, a Chhattisgarh police officer confirmed on Tuesday.

The Kolkata-bound IndiGo flight from Nagpur was diverted to Raipur (Image for representation/Reuters)

Animesh Mandal (44) was arrested on charges of informing the crew after the flight took off from Nagpur on November 14 that there was a bomb on board, prompting the flight to be diverted to Raipur.

Upon landing in Chhattisgarh, the aircraft was thoroughly inspected by security personnel, but no suspicious items were found.

After Mandal’s lawyer Fiazal Rizvi claimed that his client was a deputy superintendent-rank IB official and had sounded the alert based on information received from a source, Raipur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Santosh Kumar Singh confirmed that Mandal was an intelligence officer and had informed the IB about his detention on November 14. But this information was not made public due to the sensitive nature of the case.

Singh also justified the arrest. “The information caused panic because Mandal claimed to be an IB officer. Once the aircraft landed, we informed the IB, and a joint team questioned him for five hours, confirming that the information was false. We have followed the law and registered a case,” he said.

Mandal was booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 351 (4) (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) and provisions of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.

Rizvi said since there was no designated court under the civil aviation law in Chhattisgarh, he had filed an application to transfer the case to the high court.

The lawyer also questioned why the police did not immediately disclose that he was an IB official who acted on information that he believed to be true. “Despite Mandal informing the police that he was a DSP-rank IB officer, he was arrested,” Rizvi said, asserting that his client is innocent.