50 flights get hoax bomb threat today; over 350 flights targeted in 2 weeks
PTC News Desk: As the hoax bomb threats to Indian airlines continue, at least 50 flights were targeted on Sunday. Over the last two weeks, more than 350 planes have received similar fake threats, with the majority delivered via social media.
On Sunday, Akasa Air announced that 15 of its flights had received security alerts. Following rigorous inspections, all aircraft were cleared for flight. IndiGo received threats for 18 flights and Vistara had alerts for 17 flights.
The Centre has also issued an advisory to all social media platforms in the matter. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has asked social media platforms to follow the provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Rules and Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and make "reasonable efforts" to 'promptly' remove bomb threat posts or "be held liable".
The ministry has warned online platforms that failing to comply with the IT Rules may result in the loss of their safe harbour protection under the IT Act. The rule now shields platforms from legal accountability for third-party content published on their social media platforms.
Issuing a statement, the IT Ministry said, "Airline travellers and security agencies are being affected due to such hoax bomb threats that disrupt the normal course of operations of the Airlines. The instances of malicious acts in the form of hoax bomb threats to such airlines lead to a potential threat to the public order & security of the state."
"Such hoax bomb threats while affecting a large number of citizens also destabilises the economic security of the country. Further, the scale of spread of such hoax bomb threats has been observed to be dangerously unrestrained due to the availability of the option of 'forwarding/re-sharing/ re-posting/ re-tweeting' on the social media platforms," the statement further read.
- PTC NEWS
