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Hijack probe: FBI chief offers help
Tribune News Service and agencies

NEW DELHI, April 5— FBI Director Louis Freeh today assured India of his organisation’s active assistance in the investigation of hijacking of Indian Airlines plane in December last.

The FBI offer came during a meeting between Freeh and CBI Director RK Raghavan here, CBI sources said.

Mr Freeh is here on a three-day official visit to India in connection with the agency setting up an FBI office in the Capital to foster closer contacts with New Delhi for joint cooperation in tackling international terrorism and other crimes.

During the meeting, which lasted for nearly two hours, several other broad issues were discussed between the directors of the two investigating agencies. Mr Freeh and Mr Raghavan stressed on the need for a greater cooperation in the area of investigation technology.

They felt that CBI and FBI officials should interact more often to their mutual benefit in terms of new technologies in the area of criminal investigations, the sources said.

Mr Freeh who arrived here last night met Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh, the Special Secretary (Home) and other senior government officials and discussed issues of mutual interest.

While agreeing to interact more in the areas of criminal investigation, the two sides stressed the need for greater cooperation, particularly in the areas of technology in investigation and creation of infrastructure and training facilities for the same.

This is the first ever visit of the FBI chief to India, and is a prelude to setting up an arm of the agency here.

Mr Freeh’s visit marks the culmination of recent efforts to facilitate greater interaction between the law enforcement agencies of the two countries. A series of high-level meetings since last September had resulted in the setting up of the Indo-US counter-terrorism working group.

The first meeting of the working group took place in February in Washington where the two sides agreed to share experiences, exchange information and coordinate approaches and action in their war against international terrorism.

Although it was still not clear whether the FBI will be allowed to open a full-fledged office in Delhi or is it really interested, as reported earlier, but there are indications that the US investigating agency will definitely increase its presence here.

Apparently the agency will increase its staff strength here and will initially start operating from the US Embassy.