Man gets life imprisonment for plane hijack scare

A Mumbai-based businessman has become the first person in the country to be convicted under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 after a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court awarded him life imprisonment for planting a hijack threat letter on a Mumbai-Delhi flight in October 2017.

Birju Salla was held guilty and awarded life imprisonment by M K Dave, principal judge of the (NIA) court, who also fined him Rs 5 crore.

The amount of fine will be distributed among the pilots, cabin crew, and the passengers travelling on the flight, with the pilots getting Rs 1 lakh, cabin crew members Rs 50,000 and each of the passengers Rs 25,000.

Salla was arrested by Ahmedabad’s Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) after a hijack scare on the Jet Airways flight 9W 339, which was on its way to Delhi from Mumbai on October 30, 2017. Following the threat, the flight had to be diverted to Ahmedabad airport.

The DCB initially probed the case before it was handed over to the NIA.

Investigations revealed that a cabin crew member had found a note in the toilet. The note read “Flight no 9w covered by Hijackers and aircraft should not be land and flown straight to POK. 12 people on board. if you put landing gear you will hear the noise of people dying. don’t take it as a joke…”

NIA chargesheet stated that the “planting of the ‘threat note’ amounted to ‘credible threat’ to commit the offence of hijacking”.

Salla allegedly had an affair with a woman working with the same airline. He reportedly planted the letter since he wanted the woman to quit her job with the airlines.