Bengaluru: A couple from BTM Layout in the city, Arjun and Swapna, had booked a flight to Kochi on Wednesday night. They wanted to go to their home town (Kochi) to get engaged the next day but their plans went awry when the cab they had booked to the airport failed to turn up. In a state of panic, they booked another taxi but realised that they would miss their flight which was scheduled to take off at 8.45 p.m.

According to the police, the couple, after frantically calling the carrier’s call centre six times and realising that there was little they could do, hit upon the idea of delaying the flight.. They allegedly called their relatives in Kerala and asked them to make a hoax bomb call to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) authorities. A family member, using a public phone booth in a village near Kochi, called up the airport at 8.31 p.m., 15 minutes before departure, and informed the authorities that there were explosives on board.

Authorities realised that the call was a hoax, and the flight finally took off a little after 3 a.m.

A preliminary investigation revealed that Arjun and Swapna had made multiple calls to the carrier to find out what would happen had they missed their flight.

Coincidentally, Rafiqh, a senior police officer from Kochi, who was in the city for official purposes, was also a passenger on the flight. He helped the city police probe the hoax and sent his team in Kochi to track the call. His team was able to identify the public telephone booth used to make the call in the village where the accused were scheduled to be engaged.

Armed with the information, the police summoned the accused and questioned them for few hours before letting them complete their engagement formalities on humanitarian grounds. The police have booked the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and have summoned them to appear before the police for further investigation after their engagement.