NIA court awards life term to man behind hijack threat on Jet Airways plane

NEW DELI: A special NIA court here on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to a Mumbai-based businessman and imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on him for leaving a hijack threat note on a Jet Airways plane in October 2017.nnThe court of special NIA judge K M Dave said the fine amount submitted by the convict, businessman Birju Salla, will be distributed among the crew members and passengers on board the affected plane.nnSalla was accused of creating a hijack scare by planting a threat note written in English and Urdu in the tissue paper box of the aircraft’s toilet on October 30.nnAfter the incident, Salla become the first person to be put under the “national no fly list”, and was also the first to be booked under the stringent Anti Hijacking Act, which had replaced a vintage law of 1982.nnThe NIA had in January last year filed a charge sheet against him under sections 3(1), 3(2)(a) and 4(b) of the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016.nnThe NIA had said Salla prepared a “threat note” in both English and Urdu language and placed it “intentionally” in the tissue paper box of the toilet near the business class of the Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight no.9W339 on October 30, thereby jeopardizing the safety of passengers and crew on board.nnHe was arrested in October 2017 after the plane made an emergency landing at the Ahmedabad airport.nnHe confessed to the crime and told investigators that he had done it in the hope that it would force Jet Airways to close its Delhi operation and his girlfriend, who worked in the airline’s Delhi office, would come back to Mumbai.nnThe note asked the plane to be flown into Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The note ended with the words, Allah is Great.nnSource: Press Trust of India