Married man devised plane hijacking hoax to get out of holiday with girlfriend
A married man, who constructed a fake terror plot to get out of going on holiday with a woman he was dating online, has been arrested by police.
Motaparthi Vamshi Krishna, a travel agent from India, is alleged to have made up a story about the hijacking of a plane so that he wouldn’t have to go on a trip to Goa and Mumbai with a woman he met online.
Not having the money to take the trip and being too proud to say so, it was reported by CNN that he instead sent his girlfriend a fake plane ticket and then tried to get the flight cancelled by emailing details of a fake hijacking plot to Mumbai police.
In his email, Krishna reportedly claimed to be a woman who had overheard six men plotting to hijack planes in the cities of Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai the following day.
The email, sent from a fake email address, was taken seriously by police and resulted in security being beefed up at the airports it concerned.
Officers were also able to trace the email back to Krishna through the IP address however, which came from an internet cafe called E Netzone in Hyderabad. CCTV footage confirmed that Krishna was the one who sent the email.
CNN reports that he confessed to the hoax during police questioning.
B. Limba Reddy, deputy commissioner of police at the Commissioner's Task Force in Hyderabad, reportedly said at a press conference: "He didn't have the money, but if he cancelled because of that, it would have hurt his pride, and his friendship with the girl would've come to an end.
“So, his thinking was that if the flight was to be cancelled and it was because of the airport, he wouldn't be at fault."
Krishna was arrested on four charges, including impersonation and providing false information.
