Kandahar Hijack - Full Story and Impact on Indian Strategic and Foreign Policy

Full Story and Impact on Indian Strategic and Foreign Policy

By Prof (Dr) Ratnesh Dwivedi, Awarded Academic/Sec/Intel/Def Expert and Journalist

ratnesh.dwivedi@yahoo.com

Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that was hijacked by five members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen on 24 December 1999. The passenger flight from Kathmandu to Delhi was taken over by the terrorists at around 16:53 IST, shortly after entering Indian airspace. There were 190 people on board the aircraft, including 179 passengers and 11 crew members including Captain Devi Sharan, First Officer Rajinder Kumar and Flight Engineer Anil Kumar Jagia. 

The aircraft flew to several places including Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai. In Dubai, the hijackers released 27 passengers including a seriously injured male hostage who was stabbed multiple times by the hijackers. Later, on December 25, the hijackers forced the plane to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan. At that time, much of Afghanistan, including the Kandahar airport where the hijacked plane landed, was under Taliban control. Taliban men had surrounded the plane and the presence of two officers of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence made any external intervention difficult. The hijackers radioed the captain that they had only one hour of fuel left and that the Pakistani ATC had refused to allow them to land in Lahore. He made further calls to the ATC, requesting them to contact Pakistan and obtain permission to land, as the hijackers did not want to land in India and had already threatened to kill ten hostages if their demands were not met. At 6:30 pm, the Indian High Commission in Pakistan requested permission for the plane to land there, but was denied. At 18:25 IST, the CMG informed the National Security Guard (NSG) to be ready for a possible rescue operation.

Upon being told that there was not enough fuel to go further, the hijackers allowed the captain to land the plane at Amritsar airport. At 18:44 IST, following a message relayed by the captain to the Indian ATC, the flight began its descent towards the airport in Amritsar and the CMG was informed. Indian Home Minister LK Both Advani and Punjab state's Director General of Police Sarabjit Singh later said that they learned from the hijacking from television, not from the CMG As per guidelines, Singh asked the Inspector General of Police of the region to take charge of the situation .

At 19:10 IST, the NSG was ready to fly to Amritsar, but had to wait as government negotiators did not arrive. On landing in Amritsar, the captain requested immediate refueling for the plane. The hijackers had refused to communicate with local police officials while the plane was in Amritsar. Later accounts indicated that the hijackers, upset at the delay in refueling, stabbed Satnam Singh, a German national, and Rupin Katiyal, an Indian, with knives, causing multiple wounds. The captain contacted the ATC four times, telling them that the hijackers were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and had begun killing hostages, and requested them to refuel the plane as quickly as possible to prevent any additional deaths. Captain Sharan later said that he hoped that with the assistance of the Indian government, the crisis would end and the plan would not have to take off from Amritsar again.

Meanwhile, the CMG directed officials to ensure that the plane was immobilized at any cost and armed personnel of the Punjab Police were deployed to ensure this. The aircraft's engines were kept running and the plane remained on the runway. Eventually a refueling bowser was dispatched, but it was initially parked on the side. As the plane moved forward, the aircraft was ordered to stop taking off and it narrowly missed hitting the aircraft. The then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra later revealed that the government had asked for a sniper to be hidden in the bowser, who could fire to disable the aircraft if needed. Later, it was revealed that this approach caused the hijackers to suspect that the refueling process would prevent their departure, and they ordered Captain Sharan to take off immediately, resulting in the plane narrowly avoiding hitting a fuel tanker on the runway. The hijackers threatened to kill more hosts if the plan did not take off immediately. The Captain later said that he had to make a decision to prevent the passengers from being killed. Despite not receiving any clearance to take off, the plane took off from Amritsar at 19:47 IST. Captain Sharan announced the departure to the ATC, saying, "We are all dying." The NSG took off from Delhi at around 19:55 IST and arrived at the airport at 20:15 IST, after the plane had taken off. On approach to Lahore, the plan again sought permission to land, which was denied by the Pakistani ATC. All lights and navigational aids at Lahore airport were switched off to prevent a forced landing. Since the plane had not been refueled at Amritsar, it was running out of fuel and Captain Sharan indicated that they would have to crash-land the plane. As he proceeded to land on the highway, the Pakistani ATC turned on the navigational aids and allowed the plane to land at the airport. The plane landed in Lahore at 20:01 IST. On receiving information that the plane had landed in Lahore, India sought transportation for the Indian High Commissioner G. Parthasarathy from Islamabad to Lahore and requested Pakistani authorities to ensure that the plane did not leave Lahore. The runway lights were again turned off and the Pakistani army surrounded the plane to prevent the plane from taking off.

According to Captain Sharan, the hijackers were ready to release some of the women and children on board the plane, but Pakistani authorities did not allow them to. Parthasarathy later said that he kept requesting Pakistan to prevent the plane from taking off, but was not listened to and was also delayed due to transport difficulties. By the time it reached the airport, the plane was refueled and allowed to depart. The plane took off from Lahore at around 22:32 IST. Indian officials contacted Pakistan to confirm reports of casualties on board the plane, but did not receive any response from Pakistani authorities.

On departure from Lahore, the crew was asked to set a route to Kabul. However, since there were no night landing facilities at Kabul airport at the time, the captain expressed his inability to do so. As the plane flew westwards, most Gulf countries closed their airspace to prevent the plane from landing. The plane was finally allowed to land at Al Minhad Air Base in Dubai and landed at 1:32 IST the next day. After negotiations between UAE authorities and the hijackers, 27 passengers were released in exchange for fuel. The body of a seriously injured 25-year-old male hostage Katyal, who had been stabbed to death earlier, was also recovered. The released passengers also included Satnam Singh, who had been attacked by the hijackers in Amritsar, and Katyal's body was later brought to India on 25 December by a special relief flight.

When the plane was in Dubai, Indian authorities wanted to attempt a rescue by the Indian Army, but UAE authorities refused to allow it. UAE authorities sent catering trucks to delay the plane further, but the hijackers forced the Captain to take off and the plane narrowly missed the runway. Captain Sharan later said that he could have opted to crash the plane to prevent it from taking off, but that he would have posed a risk of fire as the plane was full of fuel and he could not have done so without the explicit permission of the authorities. The plane later took off from Dubai at 6:20 am IST.

The plane landed at Kandahar airport at 8:33 am IST. Kandahar was under the control of the Taliban and after the plane landed there, India had to negotiate with Taliban officials to reach the hijackers. India's lack of previous contact with the Taliban regime complicated the negotiation process. Since India had not officially recognized the Taliban regime, it sent an official from its High Commission in Islamabad to Kandahar and the United Nations also sent negotiators. Armed members of the Taliban surrounded the plane, raising doubts about the Taliban's intent. The Taliban said the army was deployed in an attempt to prevent the hijackers from killing or injuring the hostages, but some analysts believe it was done to prevent an Indian military operation against the kidnappers.

Kathmandu has been a major operational base of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and a center for other illegal activities. Based on later investigations and statements from others arrested in connection with the incident, the incident was reportedly planned for more than two months. The hijackers and their associates made several trips to Kathmandu during this period. The hijacking was originally planned for December 27, 1999, but was later postponed. Tickets for the hijackers were booked through three different means.

Home Minister Advani opposed the release of prisoners in exchange for hostels, as this would affect public opinion of the government, while Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh advocated negotiating with the Taliban. On 27 December, the Indian government sent a team of negotiators led by Vivek Katju, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, along with officials Ajit Doval and CD Sahai.

The Indian officials found that the Taliban had surrounded the plane. The negotiations did not proceed, as Taliban officials refused to allow Indian special forces to conduct a covert operation, and also refused to allow their own special forces to do so. To prevent any military action, Taliban officials later surrounded the plane with tanks.

On 27 December, a Taliban official speaking to a local newspaper said that the hijackers should either leave Afghanistan or lay down their arms. Indian officials interpreted this statement as an understanding that Taliban officials would arrest the hijackers if they surrendered and began negotiations with them regarding their demands. The hijackers initially demanded the release of Masood Azhar, who was lodged in an Indian jail and said that they would release ten Indians, five foreigners and some other passengers of their choice if the condition was met. India rejected this offer and said that there would be no negotiations until all the conditions for a complete end to the hijacking were settled. On December 27, the hijackers put forth three demands, which included the release of 36 prisoners lodged in various Indian jails, return of the body of HuM founder Sajjad Afghani, and US$200 million in cash. Sajjad Afghani was the founder of HuM who was previously arrested by Indian authorities and killed during a prison escape in 1999.

In further negotiations, the demand eventually turned to the release of three prisoners – Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar. Azhar was arrested in 1994 for terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Sheikh was arrested in 1994 in connection with the kidnapping of foreigners carried out by the HUA. Zargar, who had at least three dozen murder cases registered against him, was arrested on May 15, 1992 and put in jail. On 30 December, RAW chief AS Dulat communicated with the then chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, to release prisoners lodged in the state's jails. Abdullah demanded the release of the prisoners. The Taliban opposed the move, warning Dulat of long-term consequences, but eventually agreed to the Indian government's demands. The three prisoners were released and taken to Kandahar.

By then, the hostages had been allowed to disembark from the plane by the hijackers, and the hijackers also surrendered their weapons to the Taliban. Passenger statements indicate that the hijackers asked the passengers to express their gratitude to the Afghanistan government, following which money was collected and handed over to one of the passengers, Anuj Sharma, who was instructed to use it to make a souvenir of the hijacking for a museum in Kandahar. India clearly told the Taliban that it expected the Taliban to arrest the perpetrators and take action against them. However, instead of arresting the hijackers and the three prisoners handed over to them, Taliban authorities gave them ten hours to leave the country and took them to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Indian Airlines suspended all flights to and from Kathmandu following the hijacking. The airline resumed its services to Kathmandu under the same flight number five months later on June 1, 2000, after Nepal assured India of complete security at Kathmandu's airport. Nepal also agreed to install an additional X-ray machine at the airport and have final checks of passengers conducted by Indian security personnel. In January 2000, security at Indian airports was handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force. The aircraft was returned to Indian Airlines and was finally scrapped in December 2003.

On December 29, Indian intelligence agencies intercepted a phone call sent from Pakistan to Abdul Latif in Mumbai. The phone call asked Latif to contact a news agency in London and tell it that the hijackers would blow up the aircraft if their demands were not met. The case was being investigated.

Ten people were charged for the hijacking by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), of which the whereabouts of seven, including the five hijackers, were unknown. The hijacked plane became the main piece of evidence involved in the subsequent criminal investigation and a model of the plane was later made for the case.

After nearly eight years of litigation, a special court in Patiala sentenced the three accused to life imprisonment on 5 February 2008. While the governments of Nepal and the UAE helped in the investigation, the Pakistan government refused to cooperate. During the investigation, arrest warrants for the remaining seven accused, who were Pakistani nationals, were sent to the Pakistan government by the CBI for their extradition to India. Although the CBI also took the help of Interpol and got red corner notices issued against the seven, none of them were eventually prosecuted.

The CBI later moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking the death penalty for Latif. When the case came up for hearing in September 2012, the High Court rejected the CBI's plea and confirmed the life sentence for Latif. They also acquitted the other two of convictions under the anti-hijacking law and only confirmed their convictions under the less stringent Arms Act. The CBI later approached the Supreme Court of India against this decision.

On 13 September 2012, the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested Mehrajuddin Dand, who had allegedly provided logistical support for the hijacking. Meanwhile, Latif's parole application was rejected in 2015. On 10 July 2020, Latif and 18 others, including a passport office employee, were acquitted by a Mumbai court sessions of charges related to forging passports in connection with the hijacking incident.

The incident was seen as a failure of the then BJP government led by Vajpayee.

According to a Firstpost report, then RAW chief AS Dulat had revealed that RAW officer Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar was on board the plane during the hijacking. It believed that the proposal to send the NSG was thwarted by NK Singh, the then Indian Prime Minister's secretary, whose sister was married to Tomar. It also said that, according to former RAW officer RK Yadav, Tomar was alerted by a RAW operative in Kathmandu about a plan by Pakistan-based terrorists to hijack an Indian plane. However, Tomar rebuked him and asked him not to spread rumors. It said that somehow Tomar boarded the same plane that was hijacked and caused the failure of the operation. Media reports also criticized that the then Prime Minister Vajpayee was kept in the dark for more than an hour after the hijacking.

In a report to the Indian Parliament on 1 March 2000, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said that the government initially did not know that the plan would land in Amritsar and had limited information about the number of criminals and the nature of the weapons. He further said that information received from the flight crew indicated that the attackers had already killed the passengers, and any action could have contributed to undue risk. Indian authorities made all efforts to prevent the plane from taking off.

Indian Foreign Policy

Doval, who was part of the negotiating team, called the entire incident a diplomatic failure, although the same Ajit Doval was also present at the meeting to demand the release of three terrorists. The terrorists had gone to Kandahar. India had actively opposed the Taliban regime since it gained power in Afghanistan in 1996, as they were suspected of being involved in training terrorists for attacks in the Indian Kashmir region. Although the Taliban had publicly expressed displeasure over the kidnappings, it did not actively help India and shared few common interests with the ISI.

While the Taliban and India negotiated to end the kidnappings, it was considered a setback for India as it was forced to negotiate with the Taliban. It later supported the Northern Alliance and provided them logistical support in the fight against the Taliban. Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud visited India on several occasions to discuss strategies to deal with the Taliban. During the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, the Indian government provided intelligence on training camps of Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan.

The three released terrorists and kidnappers are accused in other terrorism-related incidents such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot attack and the 2019 Pulwama attack. Azhar later founded the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) in 2000, which gained notoriety for his alleged role in various attacks that led to the deaths of hundreds of people and armed forces personnel. After his release, Sheikh joined JeM along with Azhar in 2000. He was later arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2002 for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. He also played a key role in planning the September 2001 attacks in the United States. Since his release, Zargar has played an active role in training Islamist militants in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

Amjad Farooqi, who was previously involved in the kidnapping of Western tourists in Kashmir by Al-Faran in 1995, was also involved in the hijacking under the name "Mansoor Hasnain". On 1 March 2022, one of the hijackers, Zahoor Mistry, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Karachi, Pakistan. Ibrahim was held responsible for the murder of passenger Rupin Katyal and the gunmen who killed Ibrahim were never identified.

When the hijacked plane landed in Amritsar, the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the center and the BJP coalition government in Punjab, along with a large number of Indian intelligence agencies, diplomats, bureaucrats, NSG, Punjab police, central forces and political leadership from top to bottom, had plenty of time to negotiate with the hijackers and not let the plane escape Indian airspace. They let the opportunity slip away once and for all. After consulting various reliable sources, it was found that it was true that the terrorists used pseudonyms to address each other and they knew that they had more than a week to carry out the entire operation. This was clearly visible from their comfort zone inside the plane and at various landing sites of the plane. When the plane lands in Lahore for refueling and the airport lights are deliberately switched off to swap the hostages despite the hijackers' attempts to spare some of them, Pakistani authorities come into the picture. Here an Indian diplomat G Parthasarathy was flown from Islamabad to Lahore airport but he got stuck in a heavy traffic jam and when he reached Lahore airport, the plane had already been refueled and was about to leave for some other location. Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar, a #RAW station chief in Kathmandu who did not listen to a credible tip from the second-in-command and could have averted the entire hijacking, was himself traveling inside the plane to see his ailing wife (a relative of Natwar Singh). Had his identity been revealed he would have been killed. Instead of being demoted he was promoted to an easy job in the US.

It was not only Jaswant Singh who took the three freed terrorists to Kandahar in a chartered plane but India's now much-discussed #spy chief Ajit Kumar Doval was also with him. The three released terrorists plotted all major terror attacks in India including 26/11, the Parliament attack, the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and many others. The Kandahar hijacking is an aspect of Indian politics, diplomacy, strategic, intelligence and diplomatic sphere that will keep haunting us forever.