The National No Fly List, unveiled eight months ago in India, has named its first person to be placed on the list - 37-year-old Birju Salla, who was arrested in October last year for creating a hijack scare.
The 37-year-old was found to have created a hijack after forcing a Delhi-bound Jet Airways flight to divert to Ahmedabad airport after a note was found in the plane’s washroom. The note stated that there were hijackers and a bomb in the plane.
A spokesman for the Director General of Civil Aviation told Times of India that “Mr Salla, the man who had created the hijack scare in a Jet Airways flight last year, is the first person to be put on the no-fly list.”
Mr Salla was also the first to be booked under the strict Anti-Hijacking Act.
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It follows a practice of airlines banning misbehaving passengers at their level. Air India banned Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad after a video of Gaikwad allegedly beating a staff went viral. Later IndiGo Airlines banned Telugu Desam Party’s, JC Diwakar Reddy.
Following the incidents, the idea of a no fly list was floated. The then civil aviation minister, Ashok G Raju announced a set of rules on September 8, last year. “This so-called no-fly list has been brought out keeping in mind the safety of passengers, crew and the aircraft, and is based on a security threat perception,” he had said while announcing the rules.
The revised requirements state that if a passenger’s behaviour is considered life-threatening then he or she can be banned from flying. There are three categories of unruly behaviour; the third category bears the harshest punishment, which Mr Salla has received.
Jet Airways Boeing 737 on tarmac. Source: Supplied
The punishment under the first category is a flying ban of up to three months. Under the second category, offenders will face a flying ban up to six months.
Salla, a multi-millionaire jeweller from Mumbai, had allegedly prepared the note about hijacking. Its reported that he hoped the threat could close operations in Delhi and his girlfriend, an airline-staff at Delhi, could come back to Mumbai.
The note was printed in Urdu and English. It asked that plane be flown to POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir). The reference to POK made the note look suspicious as the area is called Azad Kashmir by the militant organisations.
Mr Salla was booked under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 which was passed by the Indian parliament in 2016.
