New Delhi: A passenger suspected to have planted a hoax note in a Jet Airways flight's washroom that triggered a mid-air bomb-and-hijack scare on Monday could be placed on the no-fly list following a nudge from the civil aviation minister.
Airline officials said they would consult the ministry and issue a no-fly notice naming the suspect once Ahmedabad police, who are questioning him, confirm they would be formally pressing charges. If that happens, he would possibly become the first person banned from flying in India.
News agency PTI identified the suspect as Birju Kishore Salla, saying he was a jeweller in his late 30s from an affluent Mumbai-based Gujarati family and a frequent flyer, whom government officials had described as a "habitual offender" known for creating trouble onboard.
The Delhi-bound Flight 9W 339, which had taken off from Mumbai at 2.55am with 115 passengers and seven crew members, made an emergency landing at Ahmedabad around 3.45am after the discovery of the note saying there were hijackers and a bomb on board.
The Boeing 737-900 was parked at a remote bay and all the occupants evacuated, the airline said. A search by the bomb squad and police found no explosives.
A six-hour screening of the passengers at Ahmedabad and a reconstruction of all their washroom visits pointed the needle of suspicion to Salla, officials said.
Soon afterwards, minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju tweeted: "Am informed that person responsible for Jet 339 (Mum-Del) incident causing the landing at Ahmedabad today morn has been identified."
He added: "Am advising the airlines to put him on the no-fly list immediately, in addition to other statutory criminal action."
In September, the ministry had notified rules for placing passengers on a no-fly list following several instances of MPs misbehaving with airline staff. The ban can range from three months to more than two years depending on the gravity of the offence, with bomb hoaxes falling in the third or most serious category.
Airlines are not bound to honour one another's no-fly lists but have informally confirmed they would.
Ministry officials confirmed the standard procedure for placing a person on the "no-fly" list in such cases was "advice from the ministry and filing of a case by the police".
PTI reported that, according to officials, Salla had once carried a cockroach into a flight and blamed the airline for its presence in his food, but was let off after promising there would be no repeats.
The printed note, with a paragraph in Urdu followed by one in English, said the flight had 12 hijackers on board and a bomb in the cargo hold, and should be flown straight to "POK" (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir).
Officials later said the investigators found this suspicious because Pakistan-based terrorists call the area "Azad Kashmir".
"If you put landing gear you will hear the noise of people dying. Don't take it as a joke. Cargo area contains explosive bomb and wl blast if you land (in) Delhi," the note said.
As the flight made an emergency landing, National Security Guard commandos were put on high alert, officials said. When the flight left for Delhi around 10.30am, two armed sky marshals accompanied it.
Sources said all the passengers were profiled and had their photographs taken and personal details sought, including those of their latest foreign trips.
Civil aviation ministry officials said bomb hoaxes were taken very seriously worldwide and the pranksters treated as "potential criminals".
"Given the current charged situation, any such calls or notes will be taken very seriously," an official said.
The National Investigation Agency is likely to take the investigation over, a senior agency official said.
