New Delhi, November 9
The CBI will soon send a second team to Afghanistan to question a Taliban leader, General Usmani, in connection with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane in 1999.
The team will question the former Taliban General after former Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil had told CBI sleuths that General Usmani would be able to throw more light on the entire IC-814 hijacking episode, CBI sources said here.
They said some more senior Taliban leaders would be questioned and a request was being made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as it was holding the custody of these persons after the US-led alliance struck on Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
According to intelligence reports, General Usmani was the ISI liaison officer between the Pakistani intelligence agency and the Taliban. His questioning is being seen as important as he was likely in knowledge of ISI officials present in the Kandahar airport building.
The CBI has also been trying to lay its hands on the voice recorder of the Air Traffic Control of Kandahar as the agency suspects that all information and directions were coming from Pakistan.
The sources said information had been sought from the FBI about some of the militant leaders of the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen who were present at the Kandahar airport after the plane landed there on December 25, 1999, a day after it was hijacked during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi.
— PTI
