Centre confirms hijack plot

New Delhi: The Ministry of Civil Aviation has confirmed that terrorist outfits planned to hijack an aircraft from North Eastern Region (NER). The admission is significant because Assam Police had a couple of months back claimed to have unearthed a conspiracy to hijack an aircraft from LGBI Airport. An employee of Air Deccan was detained in this connection.
Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel in a Lok Sabha reply said that several intelligence inputs have been received by Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) regarding terrorist outfits planning to hijack civilian aircrafts from North Eastern States (NES).
On receipt of intimation about any threat message from intelligence agencies, an alert message is issued by BCAS with a copy to the concerned regional Deputy Commissioner of Security with specific instructions to coordinate with the concerned agencies at the airports and to monitor the security arrangements, Patel added.
An Air Deccan, ground handler, Suman Dutta, was arrested after an ULFA militant spilled the beans about a plan to hijack a plane from Guwahati to Pakistan last year.
Police had claimed he was supposed to give logistic support to ULFA’s hijack plan.
Police claimed that the Air Deccan employee had visited New Delhi in November last year with two ULFA militants to discuss the hijack plan with the outfit’s leadership.
The ULFA man had allgedly confessed that the hijack plot was hatched at a restaurant in Karol Bagh here. He claimed that four top ULFA leaders and a man called Zahid were present at the meeting.
24/04/08 Assam Tribune

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Categories: Airports Apr 2008, Deccan Apr 2008, Safety Apr 2008