Birju Kishore Salla, the jeweller, who allegedly planted a note about hijackers and a bomb in the toilet of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight, was arrested under the stringent Anti-Hijacking Act.

This is the first arrest under the Act which came into force in July 2017, according to which an accused can face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment till death and his properties can be confiscated. The new Act replaces the lax 1982 law.

Salla is a multi-millionaire jeweller, who owns a flat in a posh locality of Mumbai. He is originally from Dedan village of Amreli district. The accused had planted the note with an intention to close down Jet Airways so that his girlfriend working in the Delhi-based office of the airline would leave her job and come to stay with him in Mumbai.

Birju Kishore Salla poses with Karishma Kapoor

The accused had earlier complained of finding a cockroach in the food served on a Jet Airways flight.

The Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight, with 115 passengers and seven crew members on board, had made an emergency landing on Monday after a note stating that there were hijackers and a bomb on board was found in the plane's washroom.

The note, allegedly placed by Salla, stated that there were hijackers and a bomb in the cargo area. It was a printed note in Urdu and English, asking that the plane be flown straight to PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir). It ended with the words, "Allah is Great". The reference to PoK made investigators suspicious because Pakistan-based terrorists call the area 'Azad Kashmir'.