Panic gripped 169 passengers on board a Mumbai bound Delhi-Mumbai Indigo Airlines flight on Thursday, when a man created commotion by claiming that there was a bomb on the aircraft. The passenger, later identified as Sanjay Kumar Malik (28), further claimed that the aircraft was being diverted to Karachi in Pakistan, thus adding to the panic.

Airport police said Malik had been undergoing treatment at a hospital in the Ganganagar district of Rajasthan and his family was not aware of his travel from Ganganagar to Delhi and then subsequently to Mumbai.

An official from Indigo Airlines said the entire drama began 45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to land at the Mumbai airport.

“About 20 minutes after boarding the flight, Malik asked the airhostess for some water. The airhostess got him an apple juice instead, and seeing that, he started saying loudly that there was a bomb on the plane. After that he started saying that the flight would be diverted to Karachi in Pakistan among other things,” said a CISF official, who questioned the four airhostesses on board the flight.

Officials also said a separate CISF team in Delhi got in touch with Malik’s family, who are residents of Balia village in Haryana. “The CISF team got in touch with Malik’s father Bansi Lal, who said he was not aware of Malik’s journey,” said an officer.

Malik’s father added that Malik had met with an accident on June 30 that resulted in a severe head injury. As a result, he was admitted to a hospital in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar district. According to CISF officials, Malik ran away from the hospital and made it to Delhi. He then boarded the Indigo flight this morning to meet someone in Mumbai’s Oberoi mall in connection with a job offer. CISF officials also said Malik was in a relationship with a woman who was not approved by the family.

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