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3 airports on high alert after bomb threat

Flight delayed for 4 hours at Sylhet; frantic security search finds caller's claim false

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
A telephone bomb threat by an unnamed caller sent all three international airports in Bangladesh on high alert and delayed flight operations at Sylhet Osmani International Airport for over four hours yesterday before it proved a hoax.
The caller told the family of Sylhet Airport Manager Siddiqur Rahman and District Manager of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Nurunnabi that bombs secreted at Sylhet airport would blow up any airbus on landing, officials said.
The bomb scare came after a car bomb killed Awami League leader
Mohammad Ibrahim in Sylhet city Saturday night and twin blasts in cinema halls killed a street boy and injured seven others Thursday night, underlining security concern in the northeastern city.
Nurunnabi told The Daily Star that the caller did not give his name and a family member of Siddiqur Rahman received a similar call at 2:45pm, as he was not home.
Officials of the police and other agencies such as Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Special Branch
(SB) carried out a hectic search at the airport and found nothing.
The authorities deployed paramilitary forces and Rab personnel at Zia International Airport (ZIA) in Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong and Sylhet airport.
The bomb scare turned the Sylhet airport concourse off-limits to passengers who were allowed into the hall after vigorous checks by metal detectors. The fake message delayed three flights of Biman and one of private GMG airlines, sources said.
An official of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh told The Daily Star that security was tightened in and
around the airport. The airbus flight BG-114 (London-Dubai-Dhaka-Sylhet-Dhaka), scheduled to arrive in Sylhet at 4:55pm, was one and a half hours late.
The flight kept in wait for sometime in Dhaka flew to Sylhet on the green signal after security checks were complete at Sylhet airport.
An F-28 Biman flight scheduled to reach Sylhet from Dhaka at 4:00pm landed there over four hours behind schedule.
Ashiqur Rahman, a passenger of the return flight scheduled to take off from Sylhet at 5:30pm, said: "I cancelled my booking in uncertainty."
State Minister for Civil Aviation
and Tourism Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin visited ZIA and inspected the special security arrangement in the wake of the threat. The intelligence agencies are now trying to trace the caller.
Over 1,000 security forces, including 500 officials of the air force, army, Rab and police, searched Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong after the bomb scare spread.
Five flights of Biman, GMG Airlines and Phuket Air took off amid tight security.