A man who caused a mid-air hijack scare and threatened to infect plane passengers with needles has been sentenced to life in prison.
Jitender Kumar Mohla, 45, was accused of entering the cockpit and claiming to have hijacked the plane on an Indigo flight from Goa to Delhi in February 2009, the Hindustan Times reports.
According to police, Mohla told airline crew he had a gun, infected needles and was working with two accomplices.
He had claimed to be one of the accused from the infamous Kandahar hijacking – an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked in 1999.
The Indigo pilot issued a hijack alert in response to Mohla's claims and made an emergency landing in Delhi, where the plane was isolated for two and a half hours.
Mohla had been jailed since the hijacking hoax and was found guilty of violations against the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.
A judge sentenced him to life imprisonment last week, saying even though it is presumed he had no intention of actually hijacking the plane, "it must be attributed that he knew he was on board an Indigo flight carrying 160 passengers and his terrifying act could endanger the safety of the passengers as well as the aircraft in flight".
No comments:
Post a Comment