A 41-year-old arrested in Glasgow for creating a scare on an easyJet flight by shouting slogans against US President Donald Trump and chanting “Allahu Akbar” has been identified as a Bengaluru-origin man suffering from a mental disorder, according to police sources.
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The family of the man, identified as Abhay Devadas Nayak, has been tracked down in south Bengaluru, sources said. Nayak has been accused of endangering the safety of the easyJet aircraft flying from London Luton Airport to Glasgow on July 27.
Nayak belongs to a family involved in the hotel business in Bengaluru. The family hails from the Honnavar region of the Uttara Kannada district. His father is in the hotel business, and his two siblings are doctors working abroad, police sources said after a preliminary probe.
Nayak’s family has indicated that he is a psychiatric patient diagnosed with schizophrenia, sources said. “The family said Nayak travelled around the world. His passport was issued in Bengaluru,” a source said.
The purported videos of the incident shared on social media show a person standing up mid-flight and raising slogans before he is wrestled down by passengers and members of the cabin crew. The videos show the man shouting “I am going to bomb the plane”, “Death to America, death to Trump”, and “Allahu Akbar”.
After he is wrestled to the ground by passengers, Nayak is heard saying that he raised the slogans since Trump was in Scotland that day, and he wanted to register a protest. “I want to send a message to Trump,” he is heard saying.
“There are families on this plane,” a passenger is heard telling the man.
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Nayak also tells the co-passengers that he is a passenger on seat number 11F, that he is a refugee without a passport in the UK, that he has a card for residency in Wales, and that he has no bomb as claimed earlier.
The passengers are seen finding an ATM card with the name Abhay in his wallet.
“We were called to a report of a man causing a disturbance on a flight arriving into Glasgow around 8.20 am on Sunday, 27 July, 2025,” the Scotland police said in a statement.
Nayak, who was arrested when the flight landed at Glasgow, was presented in a court on Monday and did not plead guilty or not guilty. He is expected to be taken to court again next week. Police sources in Karnataka said that Nayak is likely to be deported to India without charges.
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Online records show Nayak started a private firm called Antrix Ventures in Bengaluru in 2010 with a family member.
Reports from the UK said Nayak, who lived in Luton in Bedfordshire near London, was charged under the UK’s Air Navigation Order, including a charge of acting in a reckless or negligent manner to endanger an aircraft, or people in an aircraft.