Indian man’s airline hijack hoax was designed to get his girlfriend sacked – instead he got life behind bars

A Mumbai businessman has been sentenced to life in jail after making a hoax threat to hijack an airline in a ill-fated attempt to persuade his lover to quit her career as a flight attendant and spend more time with him.

Birju Salla, 38, who is married with two children, planted a letter in the toilet of a Jet Airways plane claiming there were 12 hijackers on-board the Mumbai-Delhi flight, prompting an emergency landing in Ahmedabad.

The court heard that Salla hoped the airline would close as a result of the hoax in October 2017, leaving his girlfriend jobless and free to enjoy his company more often.

The court of the National Investigation Agency in Ahmedabad fined Salla 50 million rupees (US$720,000), in addition to the jail sentence. He is the first person to be convicted under stringent anti-hijacking laws introduced in 2016, which allow for only two punishments for hijacking or threats to hijack: life or a death sentence.

The court was told that Salla lived with his wife, sons and his elderly parents in a flat in Mumbai. His diamond trading business allowed him a life of luxury including business-class travel, and some in the industry who knew him said he had a penchant for meeting celebrities.

During his frequent flights from Mumbai to Delhi he fell for a flight attendant and they began an affair in 2017.

He became frustrated that her job meant he could not spend as much time with her as he wanted. In July 2017 he married her secretly and asked her to leave her job, but she refused to so.

Prosecutors told the court that Salla then hatched in his plan, writing a note in English on his office computer and using Google Translate to turn it into Urdu, presumably to make it appear as though it was written by a Muslim.