New Delhi: Two flights bound for Nepal and Bhubaneswar were on Thursday grounded for a few hours and 340 people on board were evacuated following a bomb threat call received at Indira Gandhi International Airport here but it turned out to be hoax.
“An all clear was given to both the flights after about four hours of conducting anti-sabotage checks. The bomb call turned out to be hoax,” a senior airport security official said.
Officials at the airport said while the Air India flight to Bhubaneswar took off at 5:20 pm, while Nepal Airlines’ Kath-mandu-bound flight was waiting for “operational” clearance.
Airport sources said the Nepal Airlines flight was eventually cancelled due to bad weather at Kathmandu. There were also reports that four Members of Parliament were to travel on the AI flight.
The threat was triggered after the airport control room received a call at about 10 am from a person identifying himself as one Abhishek Singh and that he was a “CBI officer”.
He is reported to have said there is a “time bomb” in the Nepal-bound flight (RA-206) and that some “movement” was happening at the terminal area to strike the Delhi-Bhubaneswar flight (AI-705).
