by Anil Jaggia
The ATC now informed the hijackers that the Indian delegation was on its way. At around 7.40 p.m. I heard the sound of an Airbus 320 landing. It was definitely an Indian aircraft. We were overjoyed, and some of the passengers even clapped. We heaved a sigh of relief that we had not been abandoned by our government.
Thereafter, the tension kept building up as we waited with bated breath for an Indian face to appear. Between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m. food was brought in. Some airport staff also came in to clean the toilets. A couple of passengers confirmed from them that the Indian delegation had arrived.
The hijackers also appeared to relax. They shook hands with each other, as if they had already won. The strained atmosphere in the cabin lightened. They told us that they had been informed that there were 32 people on board the Indian aircraft but were aware that there were actually 52.
The relief aircraft had taxied to the isolation bay. Kandahar airport had just one stepladder, so it had to be wheeled from our aircraft to the other one to enable people to step in and out of the aircraft. I found this rather strange.
* * *
Kandahar
When the team of negotiators reached Kandahar late in the evening they were taken to a briefing session by Ghanshyam on his interaction with the Taliban and the hijackers. He told the Indian negotiators that the hijackers seemed a desperate lot and were heavily armed. A surprised Katju and Doval were taken aback as the intelligence reports had suggested that the hijackers were only armed with a pistol, a hand grenade and a penknife. The fact that they were now armed with automatic weapons, hand grenades and RDX gave them a jolt. Their assumption that the Taliban would want to use the opportunity to tell the world that it had remained neutral, had gone awry. Its first strategy, to engage the hijackers in negotiations, offer them hope, wear them down, and then use the NSG commandos to storm the plane if the Taliban agreed, was clearly not going to work.
Katju and Doval met the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Muttawakil and told him that the help provided by the Taliban had only sought to clear the myths that surrounded the regime. They impressed upon him that the Taliban should pressurise the hijackers not to harm any passenger.
They then embarked on step two of the strategy. “We will try and negotiate with them, but we will seek your cooperation to mount a storming operation if the hijackers do not give in,” they told Muttawakil. The latter pacified them saying that he would try and bring pressure on the hijackers to ensure that no hostage was harmed, but he ruled out any military action. “We have clear instructions from our supreme leader Mullah Omar not to allow any bloodshed at Kandahar,” he said.
Katju and his team knew they would have to rework their strategy. It was decided that while Doval was to engage in talks with the hijackers, Katju was to remain in touch with the Taliban on the one hand, and with New Delhi on the other. Since the APU of the aircraft had failed just then, and the hijackers had been provided with walkie-talkie sets by the UN, there was a lull in the negotiations again.
It was late at night when the Indian negotiators first established contact with the chief hijacker, “We are here to negotiate with you and consider your demands, but we would like you to release Rachna Katyal whose family is in mourning as her husband has been killed. Releasing her will only bring you goodwill as her family has appealed to you for her release.”
The hijacker retaliated: “We will consider any such demand only when you release Masood Azhar from your jail.”
“We will considering all your demands Doval said. “But you must leave Rachna Katyal on humanitarian grounds now. Let her go; her family is in great trauma.”
The hijacker told him to get back to them after 30 minutes. When he did, Doval was lectured on the Kashmir dispute and the atrocities committed there by the security forces. “We are not going to release anyone till we get Azhar released,” repeated the hijacker. Doval’s strategy was to use stress and wear down the hijackers, but it wasn’t working. He knew he would have to shift gears, but the hijackers called off the negotiations for the night.
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6
December 28, 1999
MAKING LOVE
TO THE ROGUES
Once, when Daman Kumar Soni wanted to go to the toilet, Bhola told him that he had to return within ten seconds. “I was so scared he would kill me if I took 11 seconds, that I was out in just seven seconds,” he recalls.
On board IC 814
At about 4.00 a.m. the APU broke down. I went into the cockpit to tell Red Cap that the batteries had to be switched off or else they too would run down. Red Cap retorted, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you more batteries.” I returned to the cabin.
Soon the batteries also packed up. The radio telephone now could be used no longer and the hijackers were unable to contact ATC. The ATC then supplied the hijackers with additional walkie-talkies. As a result, the hijackers now had three sets of walkie-talkies, one to talk with the tower, one to talk among themselves and the other to speak with ground personnel. The walkie-talkies seemed popular among the people around the aircraft and were referred to by the local name mukhabara.
I was recalled to the cockpit at about 8.00 a.m. to restore the electrical power in the aircraft. From the cockpit, I could see a number of airport security jeeps patrolling the area around the aircraft. In one of these, there was a smart Sikh officer wearing dark glasses, and dressed in a uniform that looked like it belonged to the army or Border Security Force. He took a number of rounds, as if assessing the situation in the cockpit. I still wonder who this Sikh gentleman was.
I spoke to ATC and requested them to send us batteries for the aircraft as soon as possible. The batteries arrived late in the afternoon. A technician was sent up with them and the hijacker, Doctor, was sent down as security in his place.
* * *
I had the opportunity to watch some of the passengers during the day. Two seats away from me, to my right, sat two ladies, one Japanese, the other from Nepal. The Japanese woman remained completely nonchalant about the happenings around her. She was reading a Japanese language edition of Reader’s Digest. After reading for a while, she would go to the toilet to change her clothes, then return to her seat and do her make-up. She repeated this in the afternoons. At night, she would again change in the toilet, and come back wearing a nightie. Reclining in her seat, she would go off to sleep. This happened for all the seven days that we were in Kandahar. When I asked her about it, she said: “Why should I be concerned? What has to happen has to happen.”
The Nepalese woman worked in Japan. Her two children had left Dehra Dun for Delhi, and she was supposed to meet them at the railway station. They didn’t know anybody in Delhi and unless the police helped, they would not know where to go. She fretted about their safety.
An interesting character was a caricature of the reel-life Keshto Mukherjee. Come what may, this man would insist on his two pegs in the evening. Some passengers told him that it wasn’t right to drink in Taliban country, but he wouldn’t listen. Captain Sharan asked one of the hijackers why they allowed him to drink. The hijacker said: “Look, he told me he wanted soap so I allowed him to go to his executive class seat to look for his bag, but he took out his whisky. Chodo. (Forget it.)”
Among the foreigners was a remarkable French couple, Roberto and Christina Jurie. Roberto was about my age but fate had played a cruel prank on him: this was the second hijack in which he was involved. The earlier one had been somewhere in Africa. He shared his knowledge about hijackings, emergencies and evacuations with us. He was an expert on the subject.
Among the passengers, Mr Tyagi—I never learned his first name—remained the most stoic. At Dubai, he had asked to be released because his mother’s body was lying for him to collect at Delhi airport. The hijackers had shouted that they too had several bodies lying in India, quietening Tyagi who remained cool and calm then, as during the rest of the hijacking.
Indore-based publisher Sandeep Maheshwari had two children on board the flight. Both o
f them stayed bright and chirpy throughout their ordeal, leading many of us to question that if the children could respond positively to these unusual circumstances, why couldn’t we?
Rachna Katyal, whose husband had succumbed to the wounds inflicted on him, was kept in the dark about his brutal death. Whenever she enquired about her husband, we would lie that her husband had been released at Dubai for treatment of his injuries. Though she believed us, she constantly worried about him. We made sure that she did not go to the executive club cabin lest she see the bloodstains on the aisle floor.
Among the passengers, there was a well-built man from Punjab named Iqbal. Captain Sharan and I had taken turns speaking with him. We had prepared him to help us in overpowering the hijackers, should the opportunity offer itself. However, on this day he was separated from us, aborting any plans we may have had of turning the tables on the hijackers.
The passengers were not allowed to go even to the toilet without permission, raising their hands first to catch the attention of the hijackers. “It wasn’t just us,” recounted Daman Kumar Soni, “even the pilot, who is the boss of the plane, had to raise his hand and take the hijackers’ permission before going to the toilet.”
Once, when Soni wanted to go to the toilet, Bhola told him that he had to return within ten seconds. “I was so scared he would kill me if I took 11 seconds, that I was out in just seven seconds,” he recalls.
Passenger Subhash Kumar was to recollect that while Burger and Doctor were talkative, the silent Bhola and Shankar were more menacing. Yet, it was Doctor who had stabbed Katyal and two other passengers. Later, in what was clearly an indication of his schizophrenic personality, Doctor had used the curtain from the cabin door to wipe the excessive blood from Katyal’s bleeding shoulder and chest. Burger, who kept up a non-stop prattle through the days, shared some intimate moments with the passengers. He told Kumar that he was a Kashmiri. “The Indian security forces have mistreated our women,” he told him, “they have raped our sisters.” The hijacking, then, was a step in his fight for freedom for Kashmir, a holy jehad. For this, he had made personal sacrifices too. “I have a two-month old child,” he confessed, “whose face I have still to see.”
There were some passengers who smoked, and for them the rear door was opened and that took care of the smoke.
I had noticed from the very beginning that the hijackers were well protected. They wore good quality clothes. Red Cap was wearing a pinstripe suit. All the hijackers were wearing Nike running shoes. I complimented Burger on their natty clothes. He waved it off: “Arre nahin, these are from the Himalaya Company.” I couldn’t help reflecting that this was the same company that had purchased all the snow boots and snow equipment from the international market when India was shopping for high-altitude apparel during the Kargil war.
The cabin crew worked ceaselessly on all eight days without a break, often stooping to menial jobs as demanded by the conditions. The toilets were choked beyond use, and urine flowed down the aisles, which was stopped with the use of blankets and pillows. On occasion, the cabin crew would try and clean the toilets for the use of sick passengers. In the case of one old and sick passenger, one of the cabin crew would assist him with urinating into a bottle at his seat.
We had a number of sick patients on board, and the work of doctors Anita Joshi, Lalit Verma, Dinesh Tyagi and a French lady was commendable in this respect. There were diabetic patients and people with stomach ulcers. Anita Joshi herself had a nervous breakdown. But these doctors did a heroic job. One patient, Anil Khurana—a diabetic—was very ill and had been taken off the aircraft earlier. Since there was no blood sugar measuring instrument at the airport, he had been taken to a hospital nearby. But he opted to stay at Kandahar because his brother was still on board.
Food was served at odd hours, and comprised usually just a meal a day. It consisted of one Afghani naan with one small piece of dry duck or chicken and half an onion with one green chilli. The vegetarians mostly had to rely on an apple or orange removed from the main food packets as the food packets were always far less than the number of hostages.
* * *
Kandahar
In the morning, Katju met with the Taliban leaders and tried to impress upon them to intervene and help in the negotiations. However, they refused to cooperate. The negotiators now knew that they were in hostile territory and their hopes of getting the Taliban on their side was merely an illusion.
Doval started the morning negotiations with a plea to release Rachna Katyal, but if he had expected a change in the hijackers’ attitude, he was to be disappointed. “You haven’t told us what your government is doing about releasing our man. It seems they are not bothered about their own people,” the hijackers said. During the course of negotiations, the hijackers took breaks in talking to the negotiating team, and were in touch with a “third force” from outside over a Satphone that they had from the beginning. This seemed to be the reason the hijackers were well-informed on what was happening on the ground and the reason why the hijackers had refused to let Rachna Katyal go. There had been a public outcry against the Indian government’s inaction and the fact that a young widow, whose husband had been killed, was still on the aircraft, would add pressure and force the Indians to yield to their demand. Besides what seemed to confirm it further was that now the chief hijacker told the negotiators that they were willing to release 35 hostages, for the release of Azhar.
* * *
New Delhi
In New Delhi, frustrated by the hardline approach of the hijackers and the turnaround by the Taliban, many in the CMG favoured an Entebbe-style rescue operation mounted by the Israelis in 1976. The coordinates were the same: they were in hostile territory, they’d had to fly over nations that were unfriendly, and the hijackers had enjoyed the covert support of the Ugandan government, just as the Taliban seemed to be doing now. The proposal did the rounds but fizzled out because, unlike the professional approach of the Israelis at Entebbe, Indian Intelligence agencies didn’t even have the proper intelligence inputs to mount an operation of this nature. The US again came to India’s rescue and provided details of topography and the minutest details about Kandahar airport, including maps and its satellite data.
* * *
Kandahar
New Delhi informed its negotiators that they should again gauge the mood of the Taliban, and Katju spoke with Muttawakil once more. Once more, he was informed that the Taliban would not allow any foreign power to use military force.
Things weren’t moving smoothly for Doval either who now seemed to be irritated at the hijackers’ demand for releasing 35 hostages for Azhar.
Doval consulted Katju who spoke to New Delhi, and they were told not to agree to it. Doval asked the hijackers “You tell us all your demands . . . and we will tell the government ... If you don’t give us all the demands, it will be difficult for us to take a decision,” he emphasised. The hijacker said he would inform him of all their demands soon. “You wait for some time and we will ask for all that we want,” the negotiators were told.
The walkie-talkie crackled to life after 20 minutes. “We have listed all our demands and would want your government to agree to them at the earliest or we will start killing the passengers,” the hijacker reported. “But what are your demands?” Doval asked. “We are dropping a piece of paper and you can see what we want,” he said.
The Indian negotiators were surprised to see the whole package, when it came, scribbled on a piece of paper like an exorbitant wish list. On the list were the names of 35 jailed militants, the demand for $200 million in cash, and ‘the coffin of martyr Sajjad Afghani’.
The negotiators told them they were passing the demands to New Delhi and would have to wait for their response. However, to keep them engaged, Doval asked for more details about the militants to be released, asking for specific names and details that, he said, New Delhi would need. This was meant to make the hijackers believe their demands were being considered, and to ensure there wasn’t a
break in the negotiations.
* * *
New Delhi
The day was proving to be more traumatic for the relatives with no solution in sight and the government still weighing its options. The hijackers seized the initiative and resorted to terror tactics. When news came in that the hijackers were threatening to kill passengers if their demands were not met, the official briefing failed to soothe their jangling nerves. For those waiting for the return of their loved ones, there was never any respite.
With no solution in sight, the frustrated relatives began to resort to other methods to draw the government’s attention. They shouted slogans, gathered outside the PM’s residence, gatecrashed into Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan where the Crisis Management Group was meeting. Riot police had to be deployed, there were scuffles, some rioteers managed to storm barricades, and at turns, the situation threatened to turn ugly. Civil
Aviation Secretary Ravindra Gupta tried to placate them but they were not prepared to listen to his assurances. The PM, who was condoling the death of former President Shankar Dayal Sharma, deputed the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Vasundhara Raje to talk to the relatives. Vasundhara Raje invited them to her residence for an informal meeting to calm their rising tempers and met them twice that day, briefing them about the conditions aboard the plane and the medical help being provided to passengers. This acted as a balm. However, it came belatedly, like most of the government’s actions during the crisis. Senior officials from Indian Airlines and the ministries of External Affairs and Civil Aviation were deputed to camp at Centaur Hotel and brief the relatives on the situation twice every day.
The briefings were a disaster. Officials not authorised to speak a word beyond the official line, found themselves dumbfounded on most occasions. This further frustrated the relatives who shouted slogans against the government. At the briefing sessions, tempers continued to run high.
