by Anil Jaggia
It was food for thought for Jaswant Singh and the government machinery in New Delhi.
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Flight to freedom
External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh flew with us on the 1A relief aircraft, VT-ESB. He was extremely compassionate and understanding. He glanced at my bloodstained shirt and gently covered it with my uniform jacket.
The first few persons I met after we landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport were my dear colleagues who had provided immense moral support to my family during our captivity at Kandahar. Next in tow were my wife, daughters and other relatives and friends. It appeared that they had all been saving their tears for this moment.
As I left for home, eight long days after our journey had begun, I was glad I could tell my mother that I had taken proper care of the aircraft and did not allow a bad aircraft to fo up in the air. But what could I tell my daughters? That I had no presents for them despite having been away for eight days?
That first night after my return, I could not sleep and kept awake till daybreak. In response to my family’s query, I could only say that I had got used to sleeping in a chair and not in a bed!
On January 1,2000 the crew of IC 814 was received by the Prime Minister.
I resumed my flying duties after a fortnight’s rest. On a flight a few days later, while an airhostess was serving me coffee, a man entered the cockpit and said, “Good morning, Sir.” I looked up and froze. “Not you again!” It took me a second to register that it was not Red Cap but one of our technical officers whose height and stature bore a striking resemblance to the hijacker.
Perhaps the nightmare would never leave me during the rest of my life.
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10
March 2000
POSTSCRIPT
Saurabh Shukla
On December 29, New Delhi was given its most prized tip-off by the US: a spy-satellite had recorded a dialogue between the hijackers in Kandahar and their accomplices who were traced to Mumbai. They were heard saying that if they did not succeed in their mission, they would blow up the plane. This information was to be passed on to a journalist working for an international TV network in London.
A veil of mystery still shrouds the hijacking of IC 814. However, it is now clear that a bag containing explosives, automatic weapons and hand grenades was handed over to the hijackers. It was delivered by three ISI operatives led by the First Secretary of the Pakistani mission in Kathmandu, Mohammed Arshad Cheema, his assistant Zia Ansari and a Nepali Muslim, Abdul Rais Khan. The three drove to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport (TlA) in Cheema’s official car, 42 CD 14, and the airport staff at TIA have confirmed that Cheema no longer had it on him when he left the airport. Cheema’s claim to notoriety rests in the fact that he works for ISI and was earlier named by a Sikh militant, Lakhbeer Singh, in October 1998 for handing him a pack that contained 20 kg of RDX. That Cheema still managed to stay on in Kathmandu thereafter is intriguing. He has since been deported to Pakistan.
The identity of the five masked hijackers who identified themselves as Chief (Red Cap), Burger, Shankar, Bhola and Doctor have been identified by the Home Minister, L.K. Advani as follows:
Chief (Red Cap): Ibrahim Athar hails from Bahawalpur. He is the brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the militants released in exchange for the hostages.
Doctor: Shahid Akhtar Sayed from Karachi’s Gulshan Iqbal locality.
Burger: Sunny Ahmed Qazi of Defence Colony, Karachi.
Bhola: Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim of Akhtar Colony, Karachi.
Shankar: Shakir of Sukkur City.
The hijackers are still at large, while at least some of the hostages will live all their life with the trauma of their eight-day ordeal. However, with no clear picture of their identities, the whole plot will remain under a cloud of suspicion.
Since their release, many of those passengers on board have narrated their travails of horror during captivity. However, many of them have also added that the hijackers were courteous, mixed well with the passengers during the eight-day ordeal, and at times were even affectionate. Had their confinement acted on their subconscious to recreate what psychologists describe as the Stockholm Syndrome? The condition apparendy arises when hostages become dependent on their captors and, therefore, begin to look upon them as saviours. The effect takes its name from the condition seen in the hostages after a bank robbery in Stockholm. Though the hostages from IC 814 have not admitted to the condition, they have had kind words for the hijackers.
On December 29, New Delhi was given its most prized tip-off by the US: a spy-satellite had recorded a conversation between the hijackers in Kandahar and some of their accomplices who were traced to Mumbai. They were heard saying that if they did not succeed in their mission, they would blow up the plane. This information was to be passed on to a journalist working for an international TV network in London. The CIA passed on the information to the Intelligence agencies who gave it to the special branch of Mumbai police, and the callers were traced to the Jogeshwari area of Mumbai, and four ISI operatives identified as Mohammed Rehan, Mohammed Iqbal (both Pakistanis), Yusuf Nepali (from Nepal) and Abdul Latif (an Indian) were nabbed from flat number 707 of Golden Soil colony in Jogeshwari West. The information proved vital for New Delhi, for it was the first link in the trail that culminated in the hijacking of flight IC 814.
Investigations revealed that two of the hijackers had been provided Indian passports by these ISI agents in connivance with a travel agent and some officials of the Regional Passport Office in Mumbai. The police verification required for the passports was obtained and was attached to their documents. The Mumbai Regional Passport office issued two passports within a gap of two days to the chief hijacker, Ibrahim Athar. The first passport, number B 0646881, was made in the name of Jawed Amjad Siddiqi and issued on August 18, 1999, and showed his place of birth as Mumbai. A second passport, number B 0093147 with an identical photograph of Ibrahim Athar was issued on August 20, 1999, just two days after the first one was issued. This passport gave his place of birth as Moradabad in U.P. Both passports were signed by the same official, J.D. Poojary, a Superintendent in the Regional Passport Office in Mumbai. The other hijacker whose Indian passport was dated September 7, 1999, under the name of Farooq Abdul Aziz Siddiqi and gave his place of birth as Moradabad, U.P., was Shankar. The leads present a grim scenario and point to the hijackers easily managing to procure original passports for themselves, and not forged passports as alleged by the Home Minister on January 6, 2000.
There are pointers about Pakistan’s hand in the hijacking. The original plan was to take the aircraft directly to Kandahar from Kathmandu and leave Pakistan completely out of the picture. It was only because the aircraft ran out of fuel that it was allowed to land in Lahore, and then only when the Indian authorities had begged their Pakistani counterparts for permission. However, the fact that the aircraft was refuelled and asked to take off immediately without even procuring the release of any passengers, only proves that Pakistan clearly wanted to present a public face that exonerated it of any involvement in the hijacking.
In Taliban-land, it was part of a well-planned move to bring the aircraft to Kandahar. Some pro-Harkat elements in the ruling Taliban were aware of it and were sympathetic to it, especially as the Harkat cadres had fought for Taliban in their war against the rival leader, Ahmed Shah Masood. Besides, in brokering peace and assisting in the talks, the belief was that the fallout would establish the Taliban as a regime with which the world could do business. Even the recent suo motu statement by the Minister of External Affairs in both Houses of Parliament pointed out that “the hijacking of IC 814 was an exceptionally professional and complex operation; Kandahar, possibly the most adverse location for India from where to address the situation; and the triangular coordination of the incident by the hijackers, the Taliban, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and ISI operatives a most demanding challenge.”
The plot is now believed to have been hatched in Rawalpindi i
n June 1999 at a secret meeting that was attended by some senior officials of the ISI and leaders from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The group even travelled on the Kathmandu-Delhi route to acclimatise themselves with it, and the security lapses at the Tribhuvan International Airport only helped the plot. The strong presence of ISI operatives in Kathmandu made the success of the plot that much easier. The US had warned Indian intelligence agency RAW about the possibility of terrorist attacks and even a possible hijacking by Islamic militants before the millennium. Investigations have revealed that RAW officials in Kathmandu had been sending reports about the increased activities of the ISI in Nepal. Barely 48 hours before the hijacking, a team of senior RAW officials from Delhi was in Kathmandu.
A zero FIR was registered at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport police station on December 25, 1999, under Sections 365/341/342/506/307/302/147/149 of IPC; 27, 54, 59 of the Arms Act; 5 of the Explosives Act; 4, 5 of the Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982. It was subsequently transferred to the Amritsar police as the aircraft landed at Raja Sansi airport in Amritsar after it was hijacked in mid-air.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is conducting an enquiry. Teams have gone to Kathmandu, Dubai and Amritsar but the investigation has yet to be completed.
The forensic evidence on board the hijacked flight was lost because forensic experts weren’t called when the Airbus arrived in Delhi. It was only after it had undergone complete cleaning and refurbishing in Mumbai that the sleuths realised that the forensic evidence had been destroyed.
There is litde doubt now that the hijacking was part of a carefully planned conspiracy, and that the hijackers were aware of the way an Airbus A300 operates. One of them may have been trained on a flight simulator.
The hijackers remained in constant touch with their accomplices in a third country besides India and Afghanistan. They were in possession of an Iridium phone from the beginning and that was used to communicate with their handlers—presumably in Pakistan.
The hijackers and the three militants are believed to have crossed over to Pakistan and, according to sources, are now in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. They have probably been told to go underground by their handlers and have not been sighted after they parted ways with the three released militants near Quetta on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the three militants released in return for the hostages, has returned to his native Bahawalpur in Pakistan and has floated Jesh-ei-Mohamed, a new radical fundamentalist outfit with the purpose to launch jehad against India. Following the hijacking, he has become a hero and has been sighted around Pakistan trying to rejuvenate Harkat cadres. After a US warning, the Pakistani government has put him under preventive detention, but his activities continue to instigate an anti-India tirade. The other two militants, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar alias Latram, is in Muzaffarabad and is preparing Pakistani youth for jehad in Kashmir. The third militant, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a graduate from the London School of Economics and a British national, was sighted in Karachi and is now in Pakistan.
It has been two and a half months since Indian Airlines stopped operating to Kathmandu, losing the airline revenue of Rs. 25.5 lakhs a day. The resumption of the flight, is presently under consideration.
Indian Airlines has the dubious distinction of having had the most hijackings of its aircraft in the world, yet the standard of security, as well as the checking and frisking of the passengers at entry points remains abysmal. Several airlines across the world, including El Al, Air Lanka and even Pakistan’s PI A, are stringent about these measures and have their own security personnel deployed for security checks. Besides, what is required is a frequent security audit of the airport and airline security periodically as done by the Federal Aviation Authority in the US.
Following the events of the hijacking, heads were expected to roll going by the dismal performance and clear evidence of bungling by the authorities. However, given Indian indifference and the short public memory, nothing has happened so far. Such is the state of security that in a mock hijacking conducted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in Bangalore on February 26, just two months after the IC 814 hijacking, there were grave security lapses and the hijacking ‘exercise’ proved to be successful.
All through the eight-day long hijack drama, the crisis management efforts were steered by the core team led by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and the Prime Minister’s inner-most circle. This included his foster-son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya and the editor of a news magazine who were in constant touch with Indian mission officials when the aircraft landed at Al-Minhad airforce base near Dubai. They were getting regular briefs from Dubai and the information was passed on to Vajpayee.
There were serious disagreements within the Union Council of Ministers and among leaders of the ruling coalition on the terms on which the release of the hostages was secured. Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee directed her ire at Jaswant Singh at one of the Cabinet meetings and told him that if the ministers were not to be trusted, they shouldn’t be invited to the Cabinet meetings either. She was angry at being left out of the negotiations, and at the manner in which her party colleague and Jaswant Singh’s Deputy in the Ministry of External Affairs, Ajit Panja was treated. Matters took such a turn that the Prime Minister had to intervene and pacify Mamata by asking her to call an all-religion prayer meeting at Raj Ghat. Fie also spoke with Panja himself and asked him to inform the Ambassadors of the countries whose nationals were on board.
Defence Minister George Fernandes, who was touring the North-east, remained engrossed in matters of the Sino-Indian border and was not called back for the most part of the crisis. Fernandes returned towards the end. He is believed to blame the PM’s crisis managers, Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra’s handling of the situation at the helm of the Crisis Management Group, and the manner in which the government committed strategic mistakes.
There was dissent within the government and many senior members within the Cabinets hostages-for-terrorists deal. L.K. Advani is believed to have written to Vajpayee expressing reservations over the government’s handling of the crisis, including the snafu at Amritsar.
The hijack cast fissures within the Sangh Parivar, and RSS chief Rajeridra Singh castigated the government at the manner in which the deal was clinched and the terrorists freed, and branded it as Hindu cowardice.
The government’s crisis managers also forgot that they functioned in a democracy and sidestepped the Opposition by keeping it completely out of the crisis management efforts. The belated call for an all-party meeting when the government was neck-deep in the crisis after three days, was aimed at trying to avoid the blame rather than seek their support.
Investigations have revealed that CIA, in a dispatch to India in the first week of December, had warned about a possible incident of hijacking by Islamic militants. RAW had sent a team to Kathmandu following a secret report that pointed to increased ISI activities in Kathmandu. In fact, the senior RAW official on board flight IC 814 was carrying a report on ISI activities in Kathmandu. According to investigations the hijack conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan while the funding from the operation and coordination was done by some Harkat cadres and ISI operatives based in the United Kingdom.
During the hijacking, the US sleuths were surprised that Indian intelligence agencies did not even have proper maps and vital details about Kandahar and the strength of the Taliban in the region. Much of the information for Indian intelligence agencies was flowing from the rival regime in Afghanistan that is recognised by India.
Though Washington came to India’s support in providing vital intelligence inputs and exerting some influence, India needs to prepare better to fend for itself in moments of crisis such as this. India also failed to garner any support for its hugely tom-tommed effort in labelling the hijacking an act of global terrorism. Though India and US have pledged to fight the scourge of terrorism jointly, the
onus of unveiling the mystery that shrouds IC 814’s hijacking remains with India alone if we are to pre-empt another Kandahar before it is too late.
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11
Contingency Plan
BLUNDERS GALORE
The hijack points out the inadequacies in the government’s Contingency Plan that was selectively implemented by the officials during the crisis. It points to the need of re-examining the Plan to avoid another costly mistake.
The first hijacking happened to India in 1971. Twenty-nine years and fifteen hijackings later, the country is still grappling with the right reflexes for effective crisis management.
The inside story of the hijack of IC 814 would have been incomplete without an investigation into the blunders and what really went wrong in Amritsar.
A fifty-page Contingency Plan deals with hijacking and other acts of unlawful interference with civil aviation. The plan was issued by the Government of India, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security on August 31, 1995, and prescribes guidelines for security of airports and other installations concerned with civil aviation. The preface, written by the then Commissioner of Security, Sharda Prasad, clearly states that the Contingency Plan issued in 1987 was being revised in the light of, “the experience gained in handling four incidents of hijacking that occurred in the first half of 1993”. Coincidentally, two of these happened at Raja Sansi airport in Amritsar.
Unfortunately, when IC 814 was hijacked, the Contingency Plan lay forgotten.
