Aviation minister counters Air India’s cover-up on ‘grenade’
New Delhi/Hyderabad: The Union government has ordered a high-level probe into the discovery of a used stun grenade on an Air India aircraft by a committee headed by both the joint managing director of Air India and the commissioner of security, civil aviation. The National Security Guard, too, will conduct its own investigation.
But Air India had to suffer embarrassment by Saturday evening after it seemed to have attempted a cover-up initially by describing the object in a statement as a “plastic wrapper” when civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju revealed the truth by describing the object as a (used) stun grenade and referred to the incident as a “security failure”.
Top civil aviation ministry sources acknowledged that Air India’s statement was “misleading” on this score and that action could be initiated on this too. But with ministry sources pointing out that the “used stun grenade” was incapable of detonating, Air India said there was no threat to passengers during the flight at any time. But the very recovery of a used stun grenade on the aircraft is being viewed very seriously.
As a direct fallout of the incident, the civil aviation minister will also be holding an aviation security review next week with the agencies concerned to “ensure that no (such) security lapse occurs in future,” the ministry said.
“The grenade may have remained after the mock drill.... It has BSF markings,” Mr Raju was quoted by news agencies as telling reporters at Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh. According to these reports, the grenade carried markings that read “Anti-Riot Stun Grenade” and was produced at BSF’s Tekanpur-based Tear Smoke Unit.
