Amid a spate of hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines, the Centre on Saturday told social media platforms to remove or block access to misinformation, failing which they would no longer be shielded from criminal action.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology further said that social media platforms have an “additional liability…under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita” to report acts that could threaten national security. Such entities must also provide information and help to investigative agencies, the government said.

The ministry said that if social media firms do not carry out these actions, the exemption from liability for third-party information will no longer apply to them – meaning that they could face criminal action for misinformation posted on their platforms.

The Centre said in its advisory: “Such hoax bomb threats while affecting a large number of citizens also destabilises the economic security of the country.” It added that the scale of such threats has become “dangerously unrestrained” because of the options of forwarding, reposting or retweeting misinformation.

“Such hoax bomb threats are mostly misinformation that is massively disrupting the public order, operations of airlines and security of the airline travellers,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said.

In the past 12 days, over 275 flights operated by Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats, PTI reported. Most of the threats were issued through social media. Several flights were diverted or delayed as a result.

On Monday, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Kinjarapu Naidu said that the Centre was considering legislative action to include persons found guilty of making hoax threats to flights on the no-fly list.

More than a dozen first information reports have been registered by the Mumbai Police and the Delhi Police in connection with the recent threats to flights.