A man who was apprehended last month for purportedly threatening an IndiGo flight of a bomb from Nagpur to Kolkata has been found to be an official of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The person is 44-year-old Animesh Mandal who works as an IB official ranking deputy superintendent in Nagpur, as described by the police.
The event happened on 14th November when Mandal reportedly told the crew of the IndiGo flight soon after the flight had airborne that there was a bomb on the flight. The flight that had a total of 187 passengers on board had to be landed at Raipur in an emergency. Nevertheless, the police were able to search and discover that it was just a prank involving a bomb alert.
Mandal was then arrested by the Raipur Police on charges of criminal intimidation using an anonymous post that was covered under section 351(4) of the Indian Penal Code and under provisions of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act 1982.
Faizal Rizvi, the counsel of Mandal, says that his client has no case to answer as he received information of a bomb on the flight he was to take and acted as per the information given by the source. Rizvi asked how the police did not inform Mandal that he was an officer of the IB at the point of his arrest.
Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh said that the local police, having detained Manda,l immediately informed the IB about this operation. Singh claimed that Mandal was arrested only when the local police and IB jointly conducted an arrest after ascertaining that the bomb threat information was actually false. He further stressed that Mandal’s actions created much panic as individuals risked their lives on the aircraft through threats.
Named in the case, the operational procedures and policies of the police and intelligence agencies have been questioned, and issues of responsibility of the officials responsible for sensitive cases have been raised.
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