NEW DELHI – Indian airlines have received more than 100 hoax bomb threats in a span of a few days, forcing planes to delay, reroute and make emergency landings – throwing the country’s aviation industry into costly disarray right, before one of the biggest festivals of the year.

The epidemic of hoax threats has targeted both international and domestic flights, causing chaos on long-haul trips headed for places such as New York. Although one arrest was made last week, with authorities vowing to punish perpetrators potentially with jail time, the spate of threats has continued, often sent through emails and social media posts. One airline alone, the budget company IndiGo Airlines, received nearly 30 bomb threats in four days since Sunday, according to statements by the carrier. Other Indian airlines, including Akasa Airlines, SpiceJet and Alliance Air, have also been impacted.

The highest-profile hoaxes targeted Air India last week; one flight route to Chicago had to make an emergency landing in Canada’s northernmost city in the Arctic, while another flight headed to Singapore had to be escorted by Singaporean fighter jets, with bomb disposal squads waiting at the airport. Since the flurry of hoaxes first started around mid-October, “we have [had] 150 to 160” threats, said Sanjay Lazar, an aviation expert. Bomb threat hoaxes aren’t a new phenomenon in India – several airports received similar threats in April and June this year. But the sheer frequency and level of disruption in the past two weeks has been unprecedented, sending investigators scrambling to determine who is behind the threats.

Police in Mumbai said last Wednesday that they had arrested a minor suspected of posting threats against IndiGo Airlines on X. Police are also questioning a second minor, and “there are chances he played a role in this,” a spokesperson said. But no further arrests have been made, and more threats have come in despite authorities stepping up security measures, threatening legal punishments, appeasing airlines and reassuring panicked passengers.

“Even though there are hoax threats, we can’t take the situation non-seriously,” said Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, in a news conference on Monday. “The safety and security of people and convenient travel … is always our utmost priority.” With less than a week until Diwali, the festival of lights – which sparks a travel boom each year as millions of Indians fly domestically and diaspora members come home from abroad – experts worry that the ongoing hoaxes could wreak travel havoc. (CNN)