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THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI *WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2017 15TIMES NATION
The early morning flightdeparted on time at2.55am and was sup-posed to land in Delhi at5.05am. Once aboard, most ofus fell fast asleep. I woke upwhen the aircraft toucheddown and thought we hadlanded in Delhi. I checked thetime, it was 3.45am. I was stillgroggy with sleep and so be-gan wondering at how did weland in Delhi in such a shorttime. I looked around and sawlittle movement in the pas-senger cabin. Some passen-gers were awake, others werewaking up, many were indeep sleep. Outside, it wasdark, I couldn’t see anythingfrom my window seat.
Then the captain made anannouncement. The flighthad been diverted to Ahmeda-bad due to security reasons,he said. The announcementdrew barely any reaction inthe passenger cabin.
By now, I was awake andcould see a few vehiclesparked at a distance, butcouldn’t decipher much. Forthe next 10-15 minutes therewas no announcement andwe remained seated.
Then the step ladder wasaligned and we were instruct-ed to deplane with our cabinbags. Once on ground, weclimbed onto the two busesthat were on standby. But thebuses stayed put for abouthalf an hour before theystarted moving, taking usaway from our aircraft. Icould now see that the air-craft was parked in a ratherremote place and there wereCISF personnel standing at adistance from it. They werebringing in a sniffer dog. Ihad earlier inquired with theflight attendants about the de-
velopments, but they weretight-lipped and said theyknew nothing.
Our bus stopped at a dis-tance from the isolated air-craft. Though we were faraway from the terminalbuilding, we were asked toalight and line up our cabinbags on the tarmac. Therewas a posse of CISF person-nel who scanned our bags andfrisked each and every pas-senger. Once the security
check was completed, wewere instructed to reboardthe bus and were taken to aVIP lounge, which wasn’t lo-cated in the terminal build-ing. This time around, I in-quired about the happeningswith a CISF personnel whowas escorting our group andhe merely said that there wasa specific security threat.
Once in the lounge, theyserved us water. Then theycalled us one by one and askedus to enter our personal de-tails like name, occupation,residential address, office ad-dress and contact number ina log book. Then one by onewe were asked to standagainst a wall and a CISF per-sonnel took our individual
photographs with a mobilephone. Then they distributedanother form to every passen-ger and we filled in our name,passport number, residentialaddress, information on thelast trip we took within Indiaand our last foreign trip. Allthese procedures took a fewhours after which we weresent back to the lounge wherewe waited endlessly.
We kept inquiring with theCISF officers who came intoour room about what was go-ing on and why were we here,but no one revealed anything.Most passengers were boredand sleep-deprived. Somewent back to sleep. I overheardtwo women passengers talk-ing matter-of-factly: “Kisinehoax call kiya hoga” (someonemay have made a hoax call).
After a long wait, around8.30am, CISF personnel startedcalling out our names. Whenthey called out mine, I steppedoutside the room and they saidokay you can board the flight toDelhi. At 9am, we were trans-ferred to the main terminalbuilding, where the Jet staff is-sued us reprinted boardingpasses. We boarded andaround 10.30am our flight tookoff for Delhi, where we landedsafely and collected our bags.
We didn’t find out anythingtill later in the day when thenews of the hijack and bombthreat flashed on televisions.Around midnight just before Iwas to go to bed, my wife re-marked: “Agar yeh real hijack-ing hota, toh kya hota (Had thisbeen a real hijacking whatwould have happened)?” It wasat that instant that the enormi-ty of what had happenedstruck me and I became awareof what I had gone through. Itcould have gone so wrong. TNN
‘We were not told ofthe hijack threat’
A passenger on Jet Airways Mumbai-Delhi flight 9W 339 which wasdiverted to Ahmedabad on Monday after a hijack scare narrated his
experience to TOI. He wished to remain anonymous
Around midnightjust before I was to go tobed, my wife said: ‘Hadthis been a real hijackingwhat would have happened?’ It was atthat instant that it struckme and I became awareof what I had gonethrough. It could havegone so wrong
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Ahmedabad: The crimebranch arrested Mumbaijeweller Birju Salla, 37, lateon Monday night under theprovisions of the Anti-Hi-jacking law for allegedlyplanting a letter in the lavato-ry of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Air-ways flight warning of hi-jackers and a bomb on board.
JCP (crime), J K Bhatt, onTuesday said Salla was thefirst person in India to bebooked under the new lawand may be jailed for life.
Salla was taken to Mum-bai by a police team on Tues-day. The team seized a laptopand a printer from Salla’s of-fice that were used to com-pose and print the letter.
Bhatt said Salla’s crimewas a premeditated one as hehad written the note first inEnglish and then translatedit into Urdu using a translat-ing tool on his laptop at his of-fice on Saturday.
NIA will take over the casesoon and one of its teams is al-ready working with the police.
Mumbai jeweller first manbooked under anti-hijack law
New Delhi: Corporate lob-byist Deepak Talwar, knownfor his proximity to politic-ians, officials and journal-ists, is being investigated bythe income tax departmentfor undisclosed incomeamounting to Rs 1,000 crore.
The I-T department’ssearch operation last yearagainst the lobbyist, whooperated in civil aviation,FIPB and infrastructuresectors, had led to seizureof Rs 7.35 crore and detec-tion of the undisclosed in-come, sources said.
According to investiga-tion details, the prosecutioncomplaint against Talwaralleged that he was instru-mental in getting approvalsfor several foreign airlines.Talwar is seen to have main-tained close relations withsenior government func-tionaries which helped se-cure favours for his clients.
Some of deals linked toTalwar, who has been associ-ated with FDI projects sincethe days of the NarasimhaRao government, under thelens are understood to relateto aviation contracts duringthe UPA regime.
“We deny all allega-
tions levelled against us,”Talwar’s lawyer TanveerAhmed Mir said. The law-yer said his client had notyet received any summonsfrom any court taking cog-nisance of the I-T com-plaint. “Till today, the I-Tassessing officer has notpassed any order whetherin favour or against my cli-ent since the June 2016searches conducted by theI-T department,” he added.
On the specifics of the I-Tprosecution complaint andan alleged Rs 1,000 crore un-accounted income, Mir saidhe could offer a response on-ly after he received a sum-mons or an I-T order.
Talwar, a familiar face inthe power circuit, shot intoprominence soon after lib-eralisation in 1991, and ac-quired the reputation of the‘go-to man’ for organisingFDI clearances. Later on, heexpanded into civil avia-tion, telecom and media. Af-ter a lean spell, he becameactive after Congress re-turned to power in 2004.
Lobbyist Deepak Talwarunder I-T lens for `̀1k cr
undisclosed income The I-T dept’s searchoperation last yearagainst the lobbyist,had led to theseizure of Rs 7.3cr
New Delhi: Tourism minis-ter KJ Alphons has offered afree two-night stay at govern-ment-run Ashok hotel in thecapital to the Swiss couple whowere attacked at Fatehpur Sik-ri as a “token of concern”.
Alphons, who met Marie
Droz and Quentin JeremyClerc last week in a city hospi-tal, wrote a letter to the coupleoffering them stay at ‘TheAshok’ after they recovered.Droz and Clerc have been giv-
would be covered,” Alphonssaid in the letter.
Soon after the incident, Al-phons had written to UP CMYogi Adityanath expressingconcern over the issue andhad visited the couple assur-ing them of help. TNN
fer you a room at our luxuryhotel, The Ashok, at Chankya-puri, New Delhi for two nightson the dates of your choice.All expenses at the hotel, in-cluding food and beverages,
en the freedom to choose thedates of their stay at the hotel.
“Trust you are recoveringfast and would be on your wayhome soon. As a token of ourconcern, we would like to of-
Alphons offers two-day free 5-star stay to Swiss couple
Financially well-off, Birju Sallahad recently taken theresponsibility of arranging twochartered flights for the weddingof a friend’s daughter. He was intalks with a firm in Dubai and onein Delhi. He later paid Rs 1.25 croreto the Dubai-based firm. Lastweek, he was asked for additionalRs 50 lakh. Did he really believethat a threat letter or anemergency landing could harmthe airline? “Salla confesses thathe had not thought it through andhad taken the step impulsively,”said an investigator.
Big-time spender
Crime branch sources saidSalla was apparently going tovisit his ‘girlfriend’ while in Delhiand had purchased an expensiveperfume for her from the Mumbaiairport. That was found from hisluggage. It is suspected that healso had a few otherrelationships over the years. Sallawas brought back to Ahmedabadon a Jet Airways flight late onTuesday night. Crime branchsources said that depending onthe flight, the team would try toreconstruct the chain of eventsas part of the investigation.
Love in the air
Salla was notorious for his nitpicking over service in flights. He hadreported a cockroach in his food aboard a Mumbai-Rajkot flight in2016. He was given the Commercially Important Passenger status andthus received preferential treatment. Salla was apparently a far cryfrom the usual suspects, but after reviewing CCTV footage,investigators were convinced that he was behind the hoax. The threatletter was found when a flight attendant went to the lavatory andfound the tissue paper box empty. When another crew member wentin with a fresh box, she found the letter. Crime branch officials saidinitially it was thought the suspect could be from the housekeepingstaff or the passengers. However, the airline’s officials confirmed theflight number, mentioned in the note, is not known to the staff. TNN
Birju Salla was a ‘peevish passenger’
