Trainee arrested for SpiceJet bomb hoax

Ticketing agent made call to delay the departure of his friends’ ‘girlfriends’

Delhi Police have arrested a 24-year-old man for making a hoax bomb call at the SpiceJet call centre in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport, an official said yesterday.

A Pune-bound SpiceJet flight at the IGI airport was evacuated and thoroughly searched after a call about the presence of bomb in the plane was received on Thursday.

The accused has been identified as Abhinav Prakash, a resident of Dwarka, working as a trainee ticketing agent of British Airways at DLF Qutub Plaza, Gurugram, for the last seven months. He reportedly made the hoax call to delay the departure of his friends’ ‘girlfriends’ who were on board the said flight.

The police said that the manhunt has been launched to nab two other accused persons, who are on the run.

According to Ravi Kumar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI), information was received on Thursday evening at the SpiceJet call centre in IGI airport regarding a bomb ‘planted’ on a flight set to depart for Pune at 9.30pm.

How accused was found

During a probe, the police through technical surveillance obtained ownership of the number from which the hoax call had originated. It was registered in the name Abhinav Prakash, who was subsequently apprehended.

Prakash told police that his childhood friends, Rakesh and Kunal Sehrawat, recently went on a road trip to Manali where they befriended two girls. Both the girls were departing to Pune on the flight.

“Prakash’s friends told him that they wanted to spend some more time with the girls and instigated him to find out a plan to somehow delay their departure from Delhi. In pursuance of the instigation, all the three formulated a malicious plan of making a hoax bomb call at the call centre of Spicejet with an ulterior motive of getting the flight cancelled,” said the DCP.