The government has put all Air India planes operating in the country's
neighbourhood on high security alert and directed the airlines to deploy sky
marshals following intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based LeT and other terror
groups were planning to hijack a flight.
A directive has been issued to all Indian missions abroad to sensitise the
staff of the airlines, official sources said.
According to intelligence inputs, terrorist groups having allegiance with
Al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jamat-ul-Dawa were planning to hijack an Air
India plane especially operating in or from SAARC countries -- Nepal,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as
well.
Hijacking could be attempted by the terrorists from airports located at Yangon,
Dhaka and Colombo. Security of planes operating to Bhutan has also been beefed
up, the sources said.
Following this input, the Civil Aviation Ministry has directed all the airlines
especially Air India to take extra steps besides asking Bureau of Civil
Aviation Security to deploy sky marshals on aircraft operating on such routes,
the sources said.
On its part, the External Affairs Ministry has asked Indian missions,
particularly in SAARC countries, to brief the staff of the Air India and other
Indian carriers about the threat.
Taking a serious view of the threat, the Home Ministry yesterday issued
directions to upgrade security.
The intelligence input has been shared with India by Western spy agencies,
which had received an intercept.
Special Secretary (Internal Security) U K Bansal said, "We have intelligence
inputs that there could be a hijack attempt of Indian planes. So we have
alerted the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security
(BCAS) and tightened security in all airports in the country."
The BCAS has issued an advisory to all airlines to conduct a mandatory
secondary ladder point check on all aircraft flying in the region.
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