Within 24 hours since several hotels received bomb threats, two more prominent hotels in Andhra Pradesh's Tirupati received similar threats on Saturday. The threat reportedly highlighted the name of Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, wife of Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin alongside Jaffer Sadiq, a drug trafficking kingpin, who was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Upon receiving the information, the bomb squads of Andhra Pradesh police conducted inspection at Tirupati's Raj Park Hotel and Pai Viceroy Hotel.
As per reports, the subject line of the email received by Raj Park and Pai Viceroy Hotels read, "Sulfur-based Improvised EDs in hotel pipelines left by BDDS. Evacuate by 10:35 AM!"
"Due to the impact created by Jaffer Sadiq of DMK's arrest in the drug case, TN DGP Shankar Jiwal IPS has paired with Pak ISI cells in Coimbatore to carry out these blats in order to divert attention from Mrs. Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi Chettiar", the threat mail read.
"Evacuate premise and call BDSS(Disposal Squad) to defuse IEDs. Contact Mr. PV Kalyanasundaram of DMK Arivalayam and for a Pink Envelope we've sent him with videos of our story as well as DMK family involvement. Afzal Guru will be re-born! Al-Badr! Only the BDSS has left IEDs in school premises in the name of checking!," the mail further said.
Hoax bomb threats cripple aviation industry
The hotels are receiving bomb threats at a time when India's aviation industry is facing a hard time dealing with a wave of hoax bomb threats meddling with the flight services across the nation. In the past few days, nearly 250 flights from carious airlines including Air India, Akasa Air, SpiceJet, Air Vistara, and IndiGo have received hoax bomb threats.
From placing offenders on a no-fly list, to combating the hoax security threats- the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has decided to implement stringent measures.
Commenting on the developments, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said, "Action is being taken on this. We can't comment on any kind of a conspiracy but from whatever little bit we know these calls are coming from some minors and pranksters. These are all minor and isolated incidents. There is no kind of conspiracy that we can comment on. From our side, we are going to see what best we can do. We are talking to the airlines, security agencies, within the ministry also. Consultations are going on."
Mumbai Police recently took into custody a 17-year-old boy. The minor reportedly hails from Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon. As per media reports, the threats were allegedly issued as the minor wanted to frame one of his friends, with whom he had a dispute over money.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the teenager allegedly created a handle on X in the name of the friend and posted bomb threats from it.
