Bishnu Dulal, the airline´s reservation staff, received the text message on his cell phone at 2 pm and again at 2:30 pm. The SMS sent by an unidentified person claimed there was a bomb in one of the planes operated by Agni Air. [break]
“The text message did not specify the plane that contained the bomb,” said Deputy Inspector General of Police Narayan Bastakoti, chief of airport security.
“Our first plane of concern was the one flying from Bhadrapur to Kathmandu,” said Bastakoti. Passengers and crew of the aircraft were evacuated as soon as the plane landed in Kathmandu.
“Thereafter, all the six planes of the airline were grounded for three hours. With the help of the army, we conducted a thorough search for the bomb in all the aircraft,” Bastakoti said, adding, “It turned out to be a hoax.”
Police have traced the owner of the NTC sim used to send the text message. The owner, who lives in eastern Nepal, told the police that he had lost his sim.
“The message was sent from Gwarko area using the sim,” Bastakoti said. “It was done simply to create chaos. We are searching for the miscreant,” he added.
Agni Air planes were back into operation Thursday evening.
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