Man held for creating panic on Mumbai-Jodhpur flight to flee cops

JODHPUR: A 34-year-old man was arrested for spreading a rumour that he was being kidnapped and for creating panic on-board a Mumbai-Jodhpur Air India flight on Monday, in a bid to dodge four plain clothes policemen.

He was on flight AI 645 with the Mysore-based parents of a missing 15-year-old boy, from whom he wanted to knock off reward money by giving them false information that the teenager was held captive by a tantrik in Jodhpur.

The accused, identified as Dinesh Suthar, began to scream that four of his co-passengers had kidnapped him in Mysore and were bringing him to Jodhpur and that they posed a danger to all flight passengers. The four “kidnappers” turned out to be the policemen who were accompanying the missing boy’s parents and Suthar.

DCP Amandeep Singh Kapoor said, “Right after the flight landed at Jodhpur, we took the plane into our custody and detained the four along with the complainants..We began investigations at the airport itself.” After a two-hour-long interrogation, during which time none of the other passengers were allowed to step out of the aircraft, police learnt of the accused’s ploy to dupe the teen’s parents.

Suthar had called up his parents a few days ago on seeing an advertisement and posters of the missing boy with the reward amount printed on them. “Suthar told them that the minor was held hostage by a tantrik in Jodhpur. The parents immediately called up the police and intimated them about Suthar. The police hatched a plan that Suthar, the teen’s parents and four cops would visit Jodhpur. But Suthar was not told that the four men accompanying them were policemen,” said Singh Kapoor.

When Suthar learnt that his co-passengers were policemen after the flight had taken off, he cooked up his own kidnap story to create panic on-board. “The cabin crew informed the pilots of the situation and they, in turn, got in touch with the air traffic control in Mumbai and Jodhpur. They decided to land in Jodhpur without pressing the panic button. CISF and Jodhpur police were intimated about the situation on-board,” said Kapoor.

On landing, Suthar, the teen’s parents and the cops were detained. “We interrogated them and verified the accused’s claims. We then realized that the four ‘kidnappers’ were policemen. Since Suthar had created panic on-board and was travelling with a fake ID, we arrested him,” said Kapoor.

Kapoor said that Suthar, who hails from a village in Jalore in Rajasthan, had gone to Mysore in search of a job. “On seeing the advertisement, he thought of cooking up this story to get the reward money from the missing boy’s parents.”

An Air India spokesperson said, “A group of passengers onboard the Mumbai-Jodhpur AI flight 645 made a verbal threat to the cabin crew. On landing, they were handed over to the police. The airport was shut till the plane was searched. The return flight AI 646 was airborne at 3.27pm, delayed by over two hours.”