PANAJI: A Goa-bound chartered flight from Moscow carrying 240 passengers on board was diverted to Uzbekistan in the wee hours of Saturday after the authorities at the Dabolim airport in the State got an email, which said that there was a bomb on the plane, police said.

This is the second consecutive incident on the Moscow-Goa route involving the same airline in less than a fortnight. The flight, operated by Russian airline Azur Air, was scheduled to land at the Dabolim airport in South Goa at 4.15 am, a senior police official said.

Earlier on January 9, a Moscow-to-Goa flight had made an emergency landing at Gujarat’s Jamnagar airport following a bomb threat. That flight was also operated by Azur Air.

After the threat mail, the Dabolim airport was put on alert and the personnel of Goa Police, QRT Team,  Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and dog squad were deployed at the facility as a precautionary measure, Deputy Superintendent of Police  Salim Shaikh said.

In the January 9 incident, the Azur Air office in Russia had received the threat mail, while this time it was received by the office of the Dabolim airport director, sources added.

A senior official of the Dabolim airport said a police complaint would be registered in connection with the incident.

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