Mangaluru: Two flyers booked for ‘bomber’ text message on phone that delayed flight by six hours | Mangaluru News

MANGALURU: The Bajpe police have registered a case against two persons after their ‘suspicious’ personal chat raised an alarm and delayed a Mangaluru-Mumbai flight by about six hours here on Sunday.
Commissioner of Police N Shashi Kumar said that a case has been taken up under IPC 505 (1) (b) and (c) based on a complaint by Indigo Airlines manager K P Bopanna.
The complaint stated that Simran Shetty who was seated on 14 B of the Mumbai-bound flight happened to see the text message of co-passenger Dipayan Manji, 23, seated on 13A, which read “you’re the bomber.” The message was from his friend Simran Tom, 23, who was waiting at the Mangaluru International Airport for her flight to Bengaluru.

The messages that were exchanged between them after the ‘bomber’ line were totally innocuous ones like, “Chalo, have a safe flight…Can you see me… Your plane I can…”
The chaos that followed led to the flight being delayed by about six hours.
As per protocol, a proper threat assessment was done that involved thoroughly re-screening the check-in and cabin bags and passengers. It turned out to be a false alarm. The flight left after the exercise was completed and the aircraft declared safe to fly.
Both Simran and Dipayan hail from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. Dipayan works in Gujarat and his friend is pursuing her studies at Chennai. The two had arrived in Manipal three days ago. The complainant has asked police to interrogate both passengers who were engaged in exchanging texts, police sources said.
The boy and the girl were detained at the airport on Sunday and were handed over to local police early during the day.