Bomb threat to Air India flight sparks security alert at Kochi airport

Kochi : A threat of a bomb explosion or a possible suicide attack on an Air India flight from Mumbai sparked an alert  with authorities beefing up security at the international airport.

Airport Director A K C Nair told PTI that they received information from Kolkata that there is a threat to the AI flight on the Mumbai-Kochi sector on October 25 and Ahmedabad-Mumbai sector Friday night.

“There was a threat of bomb attack or bomb suicide attack,” he said.

A high-level meeting was convened Friday morning by CISF DIG Anand Mohan, who arrived here from Chennai, to review the security at the airport.

The Director of Airports Authority of India, Kolkata, had received an anonymous call Thursday night stating that AI flights on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai and Mumbai-Kochi sector will be ‘sabotaged’, airport sources said.

The information had been handed over to police and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and as per their directions security has been tightened at the airport, the sources said.

A Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, Quick Response team, CISF and police are keeping a constant vigil at the airport.Security at the Airport perimeter entrance has also been further tightened.