Youtuber Vikas Gowda Arrested for False Claims of Spending entire day at Bengaluru airport

Apr 18, 2024

BENGALURU: A 23-year-old Youtuber was arrested for allegedly entering the Kempegowda International Airport here, recording a video and later falsely claiming that he spent an entire day there, police said on Thursday.

Vikas Gowda, a resident of Yelahanka here, entered the airport with a ticket of Chennai-bound Air India flight on April 7 at around 12 pm, they said.

According to the police, he did not board the flight "deliberately" and, instead, was roaming around the airport recording a video on his mobile phone.

On April 12, he uploaded the alleged video on his YouTube channel, which has nearly 1.13 lakh subscribers, falsely claiming that he had spent an entire day at the airport and had ventured into many areas of the airport premises hoodwinking security.

The alleged video was later on deleted by him.

"He entered the airport and cleared the security check at Terminal-2 of the Kempegowda International Airport and headed towards the boarding lounge. But instead of boarding the plane, he was roaming around in the airport premises and spent nearly six hours at the airport," a senior police officer said.

After recording the video, he left the airport claiming to the security personnel that he had missed his flight. Since he had a valid ticket and boarding pass, the security personnel did not suspect him, he said.

Preliminary investigation said he did it for publicity and also his claims in the alleged video were an exaggeration, he added.

The matter came to the notice of the airport security personnel on April 15 and, based on the complaint of a Central Industrial Security Force official, a case was registered against Gowda under Sections 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) and 448 (house trespass) of the Indian Penal Code, and he was arrested, the officer said.

Gowda was later released on bail, police said.