M A I N   N E W S

Pak told to hand over hijackers

NEW DELHI, Jan 15 (UNI) — India today formally asked Pakistan to extradite the five Pakistani hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in accordance with the international conventions and the SAARC regional convention on terrorism.

Pakistan High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi was summoned to the foreign office by Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh who told him that India had the jurisdiction over the offences committed by the hijackers and their accomplices.

This was the first time India took up the matter with Pakistan after the eight-day hijacking that ended in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on December 31.

Briefing reporters, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said Mr Qazi was also reminded that Pakistan also had legal obligations, under the 1972 Simla Agreement, to prevent the organisation, assistance or encouragement of any acts detrimental to the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious relations and also to prevent hostile propaganda.

Asked whether New Delhi had also demanded extradition of the three militants released by India in exchange for the hostages on board the aircraft, the spokesman said the focus at the meeting between the Foreign Secretary and the High Commissioner was on extradition of the five hijackers.

Mr Mansingh told Mr Qazi that Pakistan had legal obligations under the 1971 Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, the 1970 Hague convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft and the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, to all of which Pakistan was a party.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan today ruled out the possibility of granting political asylum to the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 and said if found in the country they would be dealt with according to the law.

Foreign office spokesman Tarq Altaf told the VOA that they were looking for them and would be caught according the international law.

Mr Altaf dispelled the impression that the agreement between Afghanistan and India to settle the hijacking drama in Kandahar had cast any negative impact on the country.

He said, we are neither involved in the agreement nor we know anything about it.’’

Pakistan had condemned the hijacking and refused to tackle it despite the request from several countries whose nationals were held hostages, he added.

But we feared in case of a little involvement, India would have played it up in a negative sense saying that Pakistan was meddling in the matter, he said.

Pakistan took a policy decision in this regard that it would not interfere in the matter.

We lack guts, says Farooq
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 15 — The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, said here today that India did not have the guts to confront Pakistan, and Pakistan was aware of this.

The Chief Minister, who was speaking at a seminar here today, said: ‘‘I must tell you India does not have the guts to fight Pakistan. Pakistan knows this and that is why it is infiltrating everywhere in the country’’.

Dr Abdullah, who was evidently upset over the release of the three Islamic militants in exchange for hostages of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane, said if this was the policy of the government, it should not claim itself to be a ‘‘strong nation’’. Even if the hostages had been killed and even if millions of Indians were to be killed India should not have compromised on terrorism, Mr Abdullah said.

The Chief Minister of J&K, who set aside his written speech and made a sparkling extempore presentation while participating as a guest speaker at a seminar on Relevance of the All India Services (AIS) in the emerging socio-political and economic scenario, held at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) premises in Chandigarh, also made some frank confessions about his impression ‘‘as a politician’’ of the AIS.

‘‘The AIS was conceived to unite India and make it more cohesive, but over the years it came to the fore that the politician was the boss and he would not like to hear any unpalatable truth from the bureaucrats’’, Dr Abdullah said. ‘‘Instead of speaking the truth, we hide behind lies’’.

Dr Abdullah added that he also felt that reservation in the services should be abolished and calibre and capability must be made the criteria.

The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, who made the inaugural address in the seminar, said bureaucracy, whether Central or state, was being moulded and shaped as a ‘command system’. “This is an outdated system and needs to be changed into a ‘network system’.

Mr Badal said that it was the need of the hour to restructure bureaucracy in federal principal and added that the members of the AIS should be made accountable to the respective state government where they had been posted.

Mr Badal also emphasised the need for a change in position of the IAS with more and more technocrats getting into this service who would be able to run the public sector enterprises.

Earlier introducing the topic, Mr T.K.A. Nair, Chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board, said liberalisation, India’s integration wtih the global economy, and the introduction of the panchayat raj system in the country were the three major development of the recent past and it was time to reassess the role of the AIS in the context of these factors.

The seminar, which was jointly organised by the Public Enterprises Selection Board and CRRID, was conducted in two sessions. Mr Rashpal Malhotra, Director of CRRID, proposed the vote of thanks to the participants while stressing the need for restructuring the AIS.

A number of former top bureaucrats, including former Foreign Secretary, Mr Salman Haidar, Mr Chandra Mohan and Mr P.H. Vaishnav spoke in the Business session of the seminar, which followed the inaugural session.

Mr Haidar said the IAS had always tried to resist the entry of trained people in the cadre.

A former Punjab Chief Secretary, Mr P.H. Vaishnav, said the AIS in substance did not contradict the federal principles. He, however, added that the members of the AIS would have to do a lot of introspection.

The Business session of the seminar was wound up by Mr Satyapal Dang, a veteran CPI leader. Addressing the audience, comprising bureaucrats from Punjab and Haryana, researchers and others, the CPI leader called upon the members of the AIS to wake up to the needs of the toiling masses. The bureaucracy should be more people-oriented, he said.

We will fight till the end: Farooq
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 15 — Terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir will be much more in number now as the present activities are a do or die attempt for the Pakistani-backed forces operating in the state, opined Dr Farooq Abdullah, Chief Minister of the state, while talking to newsmen informally here this morning.

Pakistan’s Chief Executive, General Parvez Musharraf, had no developmental activity like roads, water or fiscal management to show to his people. Thus his aim is to divert the people’s attention towards the ongoing ‘‘jehad’’ by separatists in Kashmir. However, this spurt in militant activity is not related to the change of power at the Centre, Dr Abdullah said while side stepping questions if a war with Pakistan was foreseeable in the near future. He did not commit himself to an answer on war but added: ‘‘ The people of J and K will fight till the end. ’’

On the release of three hardcore terrorists in exchange of 160 people who were held hostage by hijackers on the board the Indian Airlines flight, IC 814, Dr Abdullah said this was “unfortunate but there was no other way out after the plane had left Amritsar”. In his view the Taliban were doing only what Pakistan wanted it to do. It was surviving only due to Pakistan patronage .

The destination of the hijackers was Afghanistan and the landings en route were just to fool people. Asked why the Indian Government was not coming out specifically against the Taliban and its role in the hijacking, he said by criticising Pakistan, India was criticising the right country as Pakistan was the mother of terrorism in the region.