Indian-American offloaded from international flight at Islamabad airport over 'bomb hoax'

Official says Qatar Airways offloaded Ajit Vijay Joshi at Benazir International Airport for raising 'fake' bomb...

An Indian-American man travelling to Washington via Doha was offloaded from a Qatar Airways flight at Islamabad airport on Friday after he claimed there was a bomb on the aircraft.

Ajit Vijay Joshi was offloaded at the Benazir International Airport around 3:00am in the morning after Qatar Airways refused to board him on its plane, claiming the said person raised a bomb threat which turned out to be a hoax, sources said.



Joshi was kept under detention by the airport security and was only released after the flight landed safely in Doha.

Last week, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) held a passenger at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport for trying to smuggle heroin. A news release said ANF officials, during routine patrolling, apprehended Khalid Mehmood, a resident of Gujrat. Mehmood confessed to having ingested heroin capsules. The suspected smuggler was intending to board a flight for Italy.

Security has been beefed up on various airports around the globe since a wave of coordinated attacks were carried out in French capital city of Paris on November 13, which left 129 people dead, and downing of a Russian plane on October 31, killing all 224 on board.



On November 17, two Air France flights en route to Paris from the United States were diverted following anonymous bomb threats, and hundreds of passengers and crew were safely removed, the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration said.

On November 22, a Turkish Airlines flight bound for Istanbul from New York was diverted to Halifax, Canada, after a bomb threat, Canadian police said.

On the same day, a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight from San Francisco via Hong Kong received a bomb threat but arrived without incident in Singapore, police said.