International flights from India have been getting disrupted for the past few days due to fake bomb threats. Thousands of passengers were stranded due to bomb threats by anti-social elements. The bomb game, which was first started by a 17-year-old in the name of personal vengeance, was later taken over by many evil-minded subversive forces. Initially, they were targeting only Air India flights. It later extended to all airlines in the country. Now, International flights are passing through these threats, creating uncertainty. Flight services from all cities are affected by fake bomb threats. Eight flights, including five Air India Express flights, were disrupted on Thursday. Companies like Vistara and IndiGo are also among those threatened.

These nefarious tactics can only be seen as a planned strategy by anti-social elements to destabilise the aviation sector. The only thing the government can do is to deal with such anti-national activities, which are causing hardship to airlines and tens of thousands of air passengers, without any leniency. The civil aviation minister has already said that the government intends to bring in new rules to deal with fake threats like this. Action should be taken as soon as possible. Those sending threat messages should be identified and brought to justice. The minister also hinted at imposing a travel ban on such people on flights. However, the relevant laws and regulations must be rewritten to provide more stringent punishment.

There are many people who buy tickets for huge amounts of money and come to travel by air. The mental trauma they have to go through due to the threat of bombs is indescribable. Most of the time, the threat message arrives after the departure of the flight. In such cases, the aircraft is usually diverted or landed at some other airport. As the threat mounted, some countries deployed their military planes to escort the aircrafts, and there have been instances where Indian planes were safely transported to their destination. These include countries such as Canada, England and Singapore. It is to be noted that the Canadian government came forward to escort the Air India aircraft with two fighter jets at a time when diplomatic relations with India have been strained. Such a fake threat by anti-social elements is a blow in the dark to the passengers who want to book tickets early and complete the journey as soon as possible.

Therefore, such evil forces should be detected at any cost and a law should be brought in to give them the most severe punishment. They will desist from this social evil only if there is a law to create an example by not only imposing a travel ban but also confiscating the properties of such people. Divisive forces make bomb threats using social media accounts. Security agencies need to be extra vigilant as the source can be traced and the culprits can be nabbed. If a small section of anti-social elements are allowed to disrupt flight services widely, they are likely to intrude into other modes of travel as well and create problems. The investigating team has found that an attempted sabotage was behind the recent train accident in Tamil Nadu. Conspiracies to sabotage trains were noticed in some other parts of the country as well. Heavy price will have to be paid if such malicious acts, which are being organized by the subversive forces aimed at disturbing the peaceful atmosphere in the country, are not strictly stopped.