Indian hijack hoaxer jailed for life
A passenger’s hair-brained scheme to win back his girlfriend has landed him behind bars for life.
Mumbai-based businessman Birju Salla was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court in Ahmedabad and ordered to pay a massive fine which will be distributed among crew members and passengers of the flight he disrupted.
Love-sick Salla came up with a bizarre plot in 2017 to win back his girlfriend, a Jet Airways employee based in Delhi.
He left a hoax warning in an aircraft bathroom that there were hijackers and explosives on board a Jet Airways Mumbai to Delhi flight.
His madcap notion was that this would cause the airline to close down so his girlfriend would return to him in Mumbai.
As recent events have shown, he did in fact get his wish, with Jet Airways now grounded and unlikely to ever fly again.
After his arrest, Salla became the first person added to India’s ‘no-fly’ list and the first to be charged under the 2016 Anti-Hijacking Act.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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