Man arrested for false bomb alert on flight turns out to be IB officer

RAIPUR: A man arrested for allegedly sharing a bogus bomb alert on an IndiGo flight from Nagpur to Kolkata last month has turned out to be an Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer. Police, however, justified his arrest claiming he provided false information that forced the flight with 187 passengers onboard to make an emergency landing.

Animesh Mandal (44) is a deputy superintendent-rank IB official posted in Nagpur and he was innocent, his lawyer Faizal Rizvi told reporters here two days ago. On November 14, Mandal allegedly told the crew of the IndiGo flight after it took off that there was a bomb on the plane.

The flight was diverted to Raipur, but after a thorough search upon landing, the information was found to be baseless. Mandal was arrested by Raipur Police under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 351 (4) (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) and provisions of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.

As per advocate Rizvi, after Mandal boarded the flight, he got information from his source about a bomb. Why did the police not disclose immediately that he is an IB official, the lawyer asked, talking to reporters here?

Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh said on Tuesday that police informed the IB immediately after he was detained, and he was arrested only after a joint team of local police and IB interrogated him and found the input shared by him to be fake. "Hence, he was arrested as per the law," Singh told PTI.

Mandal's act created panic, endangering the lives of passengers and crew members, he said. Advocate Rizvi, meanwhile, claimed that a person charged under the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act can be tried only by a special court, and there is no such designated court in Chhattisgarh. His client will move the High Court which has inherent powers to hear such cases, and seek bail, the lawyer said.