Mumbai: Bollywood actor Salman Khan has filed a legal notice demanding an apology from Asian News International (ANI) for an alleged defamatory article.. The article, published on September 4, 2024, includes comments from Amit Mishra, the lawyer representing Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal—two individuals accused in the firing incident outside Khan’s residence.

The article reportedly suggests that Gupta and Pal have been threatened by members of the underworld, specifically mentioning connections to gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company, and add that Khan has “known links” with a gangster and perhaps want to get Pal and Gupta killed, as reported by Live Law on Thursday.

Khan's legal team has contended that these allegations are “absolutely false,” "misguided," and "misconceived," asserting that the actor is a victim of the criminal act that was perpetrated upon him by certain individuals. The notice emphasised that the allegations were made with an intent to tarnish Khan’s image and reputation.

The notice highlighted that the allegations made in the published article constitute both a criminal offence under Section 356 (defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and is also a civil act of tortuous wrong defamation, Live Law added.

Khan has requested an unconditional apology from ANI and Mishra within 48 hours and has called for the removal of the article from the agency’s website.

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New Delhi, Nov 28: Airlines received 999 hoax bomb threats this year till November 14 and as many as 256 FIRs have been filed while guidelines have been issued by aviation security regulator BCAS for objective assessment of threats, the government said on Thursday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said a total of 1,148 hoax bomb threat messages/calls have been received since August 2022 till November 14, 2024 threatening the operations of international and domestic air travel.

While 999 threats were received by airlines during the period from January to November 14, 2024, the count stood at 122 last year and at 27 for the August-December 2022 period.

"256 FIRs have been filed since January 2024 till 14 November 2024, out of which 163 FIRs have been filed during 14 October- 14 November 2024. 12 arrests have been made in view of hoax bomb threat since January 2024 till 14 November 2024," the minister said.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has issued guidelines for objective assessment of threats. The indicative factor has been useful in reducing time taken by the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) during the decision-making process.

"Also, to reduce the overall time taken for convening BTAC to less than 5 minutes, virtual assembly of BTAC through pre-generated video link has been set up. Further, advisories for compulsory 10 per cent of secondary ladder point check-in for all flights, strict monitoring of non-scheduled flight operations, enhanced security measures and surveillance at cargo terminals were issued," Mohol said.

Further, the minister said the government is considering amending the Aircraft (Security) Rules, 2023 to put hoax threat messenger in the no-fly list.

"It is also being considered to amend Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation for covering Aircraft in flight as well as on ground, airport etc," he added.