[world-vedic] Hijackers identified; Pak role nailed

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>Hijackers identified; Pak role nailed

>Fri, 7 Jan 2000 10:56:14 -0500 (EST)

>

>Title: Hijackers identified; Pak role nailed

>Author: Pioneer News Service/New Delhi

>Publication: The Pioneer

>January 7, 2000

>

> The Government on Thursday said Pakistan's neck-deep

> involvement in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Airbus

> has been confirmed with the arrest of four activists of the

> banned Harkat-ul-Ansar in Mumbai, and subsequent

> identification of the five Pakistani hijackers who

> masterminded the dirty game two months back.

>

> Addressing a Press conference Home Minister L K Advani

> said: "Pakistan's involvement in this diabolic drama has

> been proved beyond doubt because of the ISI and militant

> outfit links of the hijackers and conspirators.

>

> The hijackers have been identified as Ibrahim Athar

> (Bahawalpur), Shahid Akhtar Sayed (Karachi), Sunny Ahmed

> Qazi (Karachi), Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim (Karachi) and Shakir

> (Sukkur City).

>

> The crew as well as the passengers of the hijacked Airbus

> identified the photographs of the hijackers, who came to be

> known as Chief (Athar), doctor (Sayed), burger (Qazi),

> bhola (Ibrahim) and Shankar (Shaqir) during the week-long

> drama.

>

> Athar is the brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, the Pakistani

> cleric freed by India along with two other militants in

> exchange for hostages on board the hijacked plane, Mr

> Advani said.

>

> Giving details of what led to their identification, the

> Home Minister said the Mumbai police working in tandem with

> the Central intellignce agencies had nabbed four ISI

> operatives who comprised the support cell for the five

> hijackers of the IA plane.

>

> The four nabbed ISI operatives were activists of

> Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), the fundamentalist Tanzeem based in

> Rawalpindi in Pakistan, which in 1997 was declared by USA a

> terrorist organisation after it was found responsible for

> the abduction of six foreign nationals in 1995. Following

> the declaration, the Tanzeem has rechristened itself as

> Harkat-ul-Mujahiden (HuM).

>

> Mr Advani said the four HuK operativs were identified as

> Mohammed Rehan and Mohammed Iqbal (both Pakistan

> nationals), Yusuf Nepali, (Nepali citizen) and Abdul Latif,

> the principal ISI agent in India. Latif, an Indian from

> Mumbai, was recruited by the ISI while he was in the Gulf

> region and trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan camps.

>

> On interogation, they revealed the hijackers' identity and

> that they were also part of the ISI conspiracy to hijack

> the IAC with the help of HuA as they provided a base to the

> operation, Mr Advani said.

>

> The Home Minister said the conspiracy to hijack the

> aircraft was hatched by the goup of four, headed by Abdul

> Latif, two months back. The principal hijacker, Ibrahim

> Akhtar, was taken from Mumbai to Calcutta on November 1.

> From there they went to new Jalpaiguri in Bengal and later

> to Kathmandu.

>

> Latif also accompanied another hijacker Shaqir to Nepal on

> December 1 via Gorakhpur (UP). On December 17, Latif took

> an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi and

> returned by train.

>

> Police achieved the breakthrough when they intercepted a

> message to Latif from a Pakistani contact, directing him to

> get in touch with a television correspondent in London and

> give the information that if the hijackers' demand were not

> met they would blow up the plane.

>

> Mr Advani said this exchange took place on December 29

> night, the sixth day of the hijacking drama, and the cue

> was promptyly followed up which led to the arrest of the

> four ISI operatives. The investigation into the case has

> been handed over to the CBI, he added.

>

> The Home Minister said that apart from the four Harkat

> activists' testimony, Pakistan's complicity in "this

> diabolic" episode was borne out by the events that occurred

> in the course of the drama itself.

>

> Sttaing that there were at least six tell-tale pointers to

> indicate Pakistan's involvement in the "dirty game of

> hijacking", he elaborated:

>

> Thirty-three of the 36 jailed militants in India, whose

> release was demanded by the hijackers, were Pakistanis.

>

> Reports from Islamabad indicate that some of the released

> persons had surfaced in Pakistan, he said, apparently

> referring to the appearance of Maulana Masood Azhar in

> Karachi and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar in Muzaffarabad in

> Pakistan-occupied Kashmir(POK) after leaving Kandhar with

> the hijackers.

>

> First thing that the hijackers did was to ask the pilot of

> the plane to take it to Lahore.

>

> Though the air traffic control at Lahore initially refused

> landing permission to the hijacked plane, later it allowed

> so. After the plane took off from Amritsar, the chief

> hijacker spoke to ATC Lahore and urged him that the

> aircraft had to be refuelled. The plane was then allowed to

> land and refuelled.

>

> To drive home the point of Pakistan's involvement in the

> hijacking, Mr Advani cited another evidence, saying three

> Pakistani embassy officials had gone to Kathmandu airport a

> little before the departure of the IA flight IC-814 on

> December 24. One of them, who proceeded to the departure

> lounge, was believed to have supplied a consignment of high

> explosive RDX to a group of Punjab militants in Kathmandu

> last year, he said.

>

> Mr Advani said Maulana Masood Azhar, who was released along

> with two others in exchange for hostages, had entered India

> under pseudonym Essa Bin Adam on a Portuguese passport in

> early 1994, with the obvious objective of promoting

> militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.

>

> "He was owned by Pakistan government as early as June 1996,

> when Major Gen (retd) Nasiruddin Khan Babar, the then

> Interior Minister, wrote to Indian High Commissioner in

> Islamabad seeking his release on "humanitarian grounds",

> that he is a journalist... Later, in December 1997, the

> Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi sent a formal note

> verbale to the Ministry of External Affairs saying Maulana

> is a Pakistani and requesting for consular access."

>

> To a query, Mr Advani said as there was violence on board

> the hijacked plane, including the killing of Rupin Katyal,

> and the charge of hijacking was punishable with death

> penalty, the hijackers could face capital punishment if

> indicted by court.

>

> Ruling out any lapse on the part of the Government in

> Amritar, the Home Minister said the hijack drama in Amritar

> has been transferred to the CBI on Punjab government's

> request.

>

 

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