An inebriated man who wanted to prevent his family members from travelling out of the country on Saturday made a hoax bomb threat to a Dubai-bound private carrier, only to land in the police net.
The city resident wanted to prevent two of his family members from flying to Dubai and made the threat call to the city police control room, prompting the security agencies to launch a full-scale search inside the Indigo flight that was originally scheduled to depart at 7.20 am on Saturday, airport and police officials said.
Following the threat call, a thorough check was undertaken by the security agencies to ascertain if any explosive items were planted in the flight.
However, no such items were found on the aircraft, with officials and others heaving a sigh of relief.
Meanwhile, the call was traced to a man in the city who wanted to stop his relatives from flying to Dubai and he was promptly picked up by the police.
The flight will proceed towards its destination later in the day, officials added.
Around 180 passengers and crew members of the flight were provided accommodation.
In a similar incident a few days ago, an IndiGo Mangaluru-Mumbai flight was delayed by around six hours after a female flyer found a male fellow passenger exchanging text messages with someone, wherein he was referred to as a "bomber".
As the passengers were boarding the plane at Mangaluru airport on August 14, the female passenger peered into the male passenger's mobile phone when he was exchanging text messages with someone, they said.
She saw that the male passenger was once referred as "bomber" in the exchange of text messages, they said.
She informed the cabin crew members, who in turn informed the authorities, who then decided to take the plane to an isolation bay for thorough screening as it was the eve of Independence Day, the sources noted.
The plane was thoroughly checked and after finding nothing suspicious, it was allowed to go to Mumbai, the sources said.
However, the aforementioned male passenger and female passenger were held off by the authorities for questioning and not allowed to go on this flight to Mumbai.
The flight was delayed by around six hours due to this whole incident.