It was a childish prank, but the bomb detection squad and police at the Chennai airport realised it too late as they rushed to respond to the “bomb alert” on Thursday midnight and did a thorough search of an airline’s aircrafts and office.
It all began with a call centre employee of Indigo Airlines in Thuraipakkam receiving a phone call at around 12.30 am. “A child spoke in Hindi.
The only words the employee could understand were ‘bomb’ and ‘airport’. But before the employee could transfer the call to a Hindi speaking colleague, it was disconnected.
The call centre management immediately informed the airport staff and the airport police was alerted,” said a police officer.
The police and bomb detection squad rushed to inspect the Indigo office at the Chennai airport and its aircraft parked there, but found no explosive.
Investigation later showed that the prank call had come from a landline. “Based on the call records we called the landline number from which it had been made.
A man answered saying the call was made by mistake by a child in the house. We could not call the number again because the receiver was kept in off mode,” the police added.