[world-vedic] Fwd: Hijackers identified; Pak role nailed

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>[world-vedic] Hijackers identified; Pak role nailed

>Fri, 07 Jan 2000 16:50:49 PST

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>>OFBJP <OFBJP

>>OFBJP Editor <Editor

>>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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