M A I N   N E W S

Hijackers’ aides arrested
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Jan 6 — A week after the end of the hijack drama, the government today emphasised that the five hijackers were from Pakistan and the diabolic ISI plan was executed with the assistance of the Harkat-ul-Ansar.

The Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, said today that the identity of the five hijackers, including the brother of freed militant Maulana Masood Azhar, had been established and that four operatives of the outfit were arrested by the Mumbai Police in this connection on December 29-30.

THE HIJACKERS From left: Sunny Ahmed Kazi, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Ibrahim Azhar (brother of Maulana Azhar), Rajesh Gopal Verma alias Shakir and Mistri Zahur Ibrahim (photos released by the Union Home Ministry).

He said preparations for the operations were spread over nearly two months and the hijackers as well as the four Mumbai-based operatives made several trips to Kathmandu.

Mr Advani said the Centre had also decided to entrust the probe to the CBI after the Punjab Police requested the case be handed over to the premier investigation agency in view of its ramifications.

In his first press conference after the hijack crisis, Mr Advani said the five hijackers were identified as Ibrahim Akhtar, alias Athar from Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, a resident of Gulshan Iqbal, Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, a resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Akhtar Colony, Karachi and Shaqir from Sukkur city.

Ibrahim, identified as brother of Maulana Azhar, was known as “Chief”, Sayeed as “Doctor”, Qazi as “Burger”, Ibrahim as “Bhola” and Shaqir as “Shanker”, the names the hijackers used to addres each other on the aircraft.

The identity of the hijackers was also confirmed by the crew and the hostages, Mr Advani said.

The Home Minister said the movement of the hijackers was being monitored and he was not in a position to disclose where they were at present.

The four Harkat-ul-Ansar operatives, who were arrested in Mumbai, were Mohammed Rehan, Mohammed Iqbal, both Pakistanis, Yusuf Nepali from Nepal and Abdul Latif from Mumbai, who was recruited by the ISI when he was in the Gulf region. Rehan was from Karachi while Iqbal was from Multan, he said.

Latif underwent intensive training in two camps, one in Pakistan and the other in Afghanistan. He also made several trips to Kathmandu during the two months preceding the hijack one along with Akhtar and another with Shaqir.

“The breakthrough came when the hijackers, through one of their associates in Pakistan contacted their Mumbai prop Abdul Latif. Latif was asked to tell a certain TV correspondent in London to air the news on his international channel that if the demands of the hijackers were not conceded they would blow up the plane. This exchange took place on the night of December 29. The cue was promptly followed up, and these four were rounded up’’, Mr Advani said.

Referring to the role of Latif, he said, Latif accompanied the chief hijacker, Akhtar on November 1, from Mumbai to Calcutta by air and from Calcutta to New Jalpaiguri by train and the onward journey by bus to Kathmandu. Latif returned after dropping Akhtar.

A month later, on December 1, Latif made another trip to Kathmandu along with Shaqir. He travelled by train to Gorakhpur and from there to Kathmandu by bus. On December 17, he took an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi and returned to Mumbai by train.

The Home Minister said apart from the testimony given by the four Harkat-ul-Ansar operatives, Pakistan’s complicity in this diabolic hijacking episode was borne out by the events that occurred in the course of the hijack episode.

He said a LTTE while before the departure of IC-814 flight from Kathmandu, a Pakistan Embassy car (number plate 42 CD 14) arrived at the airport and among the three officials who dismounted from the car and proceeded to the departure lounge was one who is believed to have supplied a consignment of RDX to a group of Punjab militants in Kathmandu some years ago.

Yesterday Home Ministry sources said Asam Saboor who had been arrested in Kathmandu for trying to exchange a consignment of fake Indian currency on January 3 this year, had given the RDX consignment to Punjab militant Lakhbir Singh in November, 1998.

Another pointer, Mr Advani said, was that the hijackers first wanted to take the plane to Lahore and ATC, Lahore refused permission. “But when it was on its way back from Amritsar, the chief hijacker spoke to ATC, Lahore and only then it was allowed to land and provided with fuel’’.

He said of the 36 prisoners whose release was demanded by the hijackers, as many as 33 were Pakistanis, one a British national of Pakistani origin, one Afghan and one Kashmiri Indian. “Pakistan’s interest in getting these prisoners is evident’’, he said.

Azhar, a former general secretary of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, who had entered India under pseudonym Essa Bin Adam on a Portuguese passport in early 1994, was accepted by Pakistan as its national in June, 1996, the Home Minister said.

He said the then Pakistan Interior Minister, Major Nasirullah Babar, wrote to the then Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad seeking his release on “humanitarian grounds” and in December, 1997 requested that consular access be granted to Azhar.

Mr Advani said in addition to providing support to terrorism, the involvement of Pakistan in counterfeit Indian currency and drug dealing were the dimensions of cross-border terrorism.

The Home Minister reiterated that the plans of Pakistan which faced four defeats in open wars, would be smashed.

All freed militants entered Pak: Azhar

KARACHI, Jan 6 (AP) — All three militants freed by India to end the hijacking drama of the Indian Airlines plane crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan, and the five hijackers were last seen on the road from Kandahar heading towards this country, one of the freed militants, said here today.

Maulana Masood Azhar, who surfaced here yesterday, said all three men (militants) had crossed together into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

“The hijackers said you don’t know us. We have never met. We are from India....,” Azhar told reporters, providing the first eyewitness account of what happened after the vehicle” carrying the five hijackers and three freed militants moved out of Kandahar airport on December 31.

Their safe passage was part of the deal to end the hijacking.

The hijackers parted company with the freed militants in Afghanistan. The hijackers remained with Azhar and his companions for 25 minutes in a vehicle that was heading in the direction of Pakistan. Then they stopped the vehicle, got out and got into another vehicle, said Azhar.

It was then that they freed their Taliban hostage, whom they had taken to guarantee their safe passage out of the airport.

“They said ‘we are returning to India but we can’t travel with you. We will get there by another way’,” recalled Azhar. Then they were gone. He refused to say in what direction the vehicle headed.

At the news conference, Azhar provided the first eyewitness account of what happened.

Their safe passage was part of the deal to end the hijacking.

Meanwhile Pakistan said its border security had been put on alert, but Azhar said there was no attempt by the border police to stop his vehicle.

“I am a Pakistani citizen who has done nothing wrong. There is no reason to stop me”, said Azhar.

He parted company with the two other freed militants after crossing into Pakistan.