India plans to punish people making hoax bomb threats against flights

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian government is working on a new law to punish those spreading the menace of hoax bomb threat calls, which disrupt the flight schedules of airlines and cause massive inconvenience to thousands of passengers. On Tuesday, IndiGo, a private Indian airline, said nine of its flights destined for Jeddah and Dammam in Saudi Arabia and some flights from Turkey bound for India received such hoax calls. The flights were diverted to the nearest airports for security checks. The callers have largely gone untraced so far. The Mumbai police said they detained a 17-year-old boy from eastern Chhattisgarh state on Oct. 16 for allegedly posting bomb threat messages on the social media handles of various airlines.