Kolkata: The city airport featured in the bomb hoax threat map for the third consecutive day on Tuesday following a post on an X handle that stated bombs were planted on 11 planes of Akasa Air, including a Pune–Kolkata flight that landed on Tuesday afternoon. A similar threat was received for another Aizawl-Kolkata flight operated by IndiGo, which was already parked at the airport.
"Hi, Terrorists Lucas and Tulip placed bombs on 11 of your planes. Flights are QP1142 (Goa–Pune), QP1153 (Varanasi–Mumbai), QP1324 (Guwahati–Bengaluru), QP1378 (Delhi–Goa), QP1386 (Bagdogra–Mumbai), QP1431 (Hyderabad– Bengaluru), QP1451 (Mumbai–Lucknow), QP1503 (Mumbai–Guwahati), QP1563 (Pune–Kolkata), QP1608 (Ayodhya–Delhi), QP1612 (Bengaluru–Varanasi), QP1822 (Ayodhya–Bengaluru)" was the message posted by @LucasnTuli22718.
The flight from Pune landed at the airport at 4.38 pm and was immediately shifted to an isolation bay where a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) was already assembled. "We immediately beefed up security in the departure area, cargo area, perimeter security, and the BDDS team was in action checking all areas to conduct an anti-sabotage check. However, nothing suspicious was found, and we lodged an FIR at NSCBI airport police station," said airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria.
Sources reported that 46 more threats were received on Tuesday across airports in India, apart from 30 bomb threats in different airlines.