Ahmedabad:In first ever case and punishment under the stricter and amended Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 in India, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here today awarded life term to Mumbai based businessman who had on October 30, 2017, put a fake threat letter in the washroom of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight saying that it should be taken to Pakistan occupied Kashmir as there were hijackers and explosives in the aircraft.

Special NIA court judge M K Dave also imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on Birju K Salla and ordered that Rs one lakh each should be given to the pilot and co-pilot, 50 thousand each to the air hostesses and 25 thousand to each of the passengers on board at the time of the incident. There were 115 passengers and seven crew members aboard the flight.

The aircraft in which Salla, who was in to jewelry business was also traveling was later landed in emergency situation in Ahmedabad. He was traveling in the business class of the same flight and was arrested. He later confessed that he had done so with the hope to get back his ex-girl friend who was an employee of the airways. He had thought that if his plan worked, the services of the airways would be terminated and his girl friend would be compelled to come back to Mumbai where he was in to jewelry business.

According to the charge-sheet in the case filed in January this year,” Salla had typed out the threat letter on his laptop at his Mumbai office the same morning of his flight and had got a print of it from the office printer, which he later put in the tissue paper box of in the plane’s toilet. A message in Urdu scribbled on the note was an exact translation of this English text by using Google Translator. Salla in the letter had written that there were 12 hijackers on on board. The flight should be taken directly to PoK. If you put landing gear you will hear the noise of people dying, he had warned the flight crew. The note ended with words Allahoo Akbar (Allah is great).’

DeshGujarat