Man cries 'bomb' to stop Filipino wife from flying out, held

MUMBAI: A Goregaon resident was arrested on Saturday for allegedly making a hoax call to the Sahar airport, to inform about a bomb on a plane. The police said that the accused, Wasim Qureshi (30), made to call to stop his wife, a Filipino, from flying out to her country. The two had had a bitter fight after which the wife left the house to go back to her country.
An official from Sahar police station said that Qureshi's call to the airport late on Friday had led to a 5-hour delay of the flight.

An officer from Sahar police station said that the first call was made to the air intelligence unit of the airport customs department around 8.30pm and the second call was made to the airport call centre around 9.30pm. "In the first call, the person told a customs official that a flyer who was scheduled to fly by Singapore Airlines was carrying 500 grams of undeclared gold. But his plan did not help in stopping the flight," said the officer. "Qureshi made another call to the airport call centre to say that a bomb had been planted on the flight. This worked out and hundreds of flyers were frisked and their baggage on board scanned. This delayed the flight by at least five hours."

The flight took off only around 5.30 am on Saturday.

The police traced the calls to a cellphone number registered in the name of Wasim Qureshi (30) from Goregaon. His interrogation revealed that he made the hoax calls to stop his foreigner wife from flying to the Philippines via Singapore. Qureshi and his wife lived in Goregaon since a few months. He had met her two years ago in Dubai where he worked as a waiter in a hotel. Qureshi was currently jobless and the two fought often, which made her leave him. "He desperately wanted to stop her," said the officer. Deputy commissioner of police Anil Kumbhare supervised a team of senior inspector Lata Shirsat and detection staff that tracked down Qureshi.