A flyer inquiring about the status of a Mumbai-Delhi flight was arrested and booked on Sunday for a hoax bomb call after an apparent misunderstanding over the pronunciation of the word 'bomb.'

Vinay Moorjani, 45, claimed he wanted to know the status of a 'Bom-Del' flight but was misunderstood by the telephone operator at the Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) as him having said "bomb hai (there is a bomb)."

Moorjani is an Indian-origin CEO of a US-based company and was apparently miffed over flight delays and made the hoax call to disrupt the Delhi flight schedules so that he could get a late night flight to Rome from the New Delhi airport if his travel from Mumbai got delayed, an official said. He was taking a connecting flight to Rome en route to Virginia along with his wife and children.

Moorjani called a toll free number of MIAL and told the woman operator that a bomb exploded ('bomb fata hai') in flight, the official claimed.

Before the operator could hear more from Moorjani, he hung up the call, after which the operator alerted her seniors, who informed the police.

Sahar police arrested Moorjani, who was spotted at a telephone booth in the CCTV footage of the airport, the official said.

Moorjani was produced in the Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Monday, which granted him bail on a sum of Rs. 15,000 and a surety of the same amount.

Court officials said Moorjani's lawyer argued that the accused had only enquired about the status of his Bom-Del flight which was misconstrued to "bomb hai (there is a bomb)."

Share This Post