‘Red alert’ in Chennai airport following bomb threat

A red alert was sounded at the Chennai Airport following a bomb threat early on Friday.
Security was intensified after input was conveyed from New Delhi about a caller who warned of an explosion in the airport. Security personnel conducted the anti-sabotage check and enhanced armed guards at vantage points, police sources said.
A phone call was received at the New Delhi airport police Control room that a woman passenger boarding a flight in Chennai bound to Saudi Arabia was carrying an explosive substance. An emergency meeting was convened shortly after midnight at the Chennai Airport involving officials of the Airports Authority of India, Central Industrial Security Force, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, intelligence agencies and others.
Heightened security arrangements are already in place at all airports in the State ahead of the Independence day and the revocation of special status to the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
Frisking was intensified shortly after midnight on Friday and entry inside the airport was strictly restricted to passengers and authorized personnel. Police conducted random checks on vehicles in the parking lot, the sources said and added that there was a delay at the security check gates in clearing passengers and their hand baggage due to the enhanced safety measures.
Parrying questions on the identity of the caller, a police officer said that the mobile phone number from which the threat call was made belonged to a person in Salem district in Tamil Nadu. Patrolling along the boundary was also stepped up to keep a check on suspicious persons or articles in the vicinity.
“The security measures that are being reviewed at regular intervals in close coordination among relevant departments will continue till further instructions,” the officer said and appealed to passengers to reach the airport at least two hours before the scheduled departure of flights for a hassle-free check-in process.