New Delhi. Amidst the continuous threats to the flights of Indian airlines, the Central Government has asked questions to social media companies. On Wednesday, October 23, the Ministry of Information and Technology held a virtual meeting with social media platform X and Facebook’s parent company Meta regarding bomb threats. Aviation companies were also included in this.
According to informed sources, during the meeting the government asked the companies – What did you do to stop these dangerous rumors from spreading? The circumstances make it clear that you were promoting crime. It is noteworthy that in the last nine days alone, threats have been made to more than 170 planes. Every time there is a threat, emergency landing of flights has to be done, due to which the aviation companies suffer a loss of three crores. So far, there are reports of a loss of more than Rs 500 crore.
Amidst the continuous threats, the central government decided on October 16 to double the number of air marshals on flights. On the same day, the Home Ministry sought a report from the Aviation Ministry regarding fake threats. Besides, CISF, NIA and IB were also asked to submit reports. Bureau of Civil Aviation Security i.e. BCAS held a meeting with officials of all the aviation companies on October 19. In this, dealing with false threats was discussed. Besides, inconvenience to passengers and loss to airlines was also discussed.