‘Clear policy needed to deal with hijackers’

Ten years after Victims of the IC 814 hijacking feel the government’s giving in to the demands of hijackers emboldened terrorists.

The sight of any man in a ‘monkey cap’ makes his heart miss a beat; eruption of sharp, aggressive voices still startles 47-year-old garments exporter Sanjive Sharma.

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Ten years after Indian Airlines’ flight number 814, which was scheduled to leave Kathmandu for Delhi with over 180 passengers, including Sharma, aboard, was hijacked on December 24, 1999 by five alleged Pakistani terrorists, memories of the incident still keep flooding back.

For the next eight days, during which Sharma and the others were held captive by the five hijackers, “Death was a very real possibility,” said Sharma.

The hijackers, who would address each other only through their ‘mission-specific’ code names, were all clad in monkey caps and jackets.

“Not even once had they pulled off their monkey caps that were dark blue, black and brown,” said Sharma.

Sharma, who now stays with his family in Gurgaon, seethes when recounting the hours preceding and following the hijack.

“The flight, IC 814, was delayed by five hours already when it left at 4.15 pm. Before that, we were going in and out of the Kathmandu airport,” he said.

“The airport officials were not frisking anybody, not checking any luggage. It was as if they were abetting the hijack that would happen later, as if it was all pre-planned.”

Inside the aircraft, Sharma had noticed a man, who was wearing a monkey cap, sitting right next to him.

“The man ahead of me, who called himself Burger, and the four other Pakistani hijackers-— code named Chief, Doctor, Bhola and Shanker — had emerged from the toilet wielding knives, pistols and hand grenades and started shouting at all of us,” Sharma recalls the moments when the hijacking occurred.

He and the other passengers were thrashed at random and asked to “keep their heads down, and not disobey/make any movement without permission, otherwise death would be served to them instantly.”

Sharma, he told HT, during one of his “weak moments” had begged Burger (Sunny Ahmed Qazi from Karachi) to make sure he could go home since his 11-year-old son (Shiv Raj) was waiting for him.

At this, he recounted, Burger told him, “My two-year-old daughter, whose face I have yet to see, is waiting for me at home too. Let’s pray we all go back home safe.”

Burger, who spoke in fluent English and would crack jokes with the passengers, was “softer in his behaviour unlike the others,” according to Sharma.

But Sharma told HT, “It would have been better had Indian commandos stormed in and killed the hijackers in Amritsar, including Burger, even if that would have meant sacrificing the lives of a few passengers, including me, in the fire-fight.”

Sharma is clear why.

“It is certain that the Pakistan-sponsored terrorists have really hiked up their offensive against India after Kandahar, after our country bowed down before those hijackers and returned three top terrorists who were in jails then,” he said.

He said softly, “I know it is easy to say this now, but something should have been done by the government before giving the hijackers their victory on a platter.

“24-by-7 live media coverage, the protests by grieving relatives of the hijacked passengers did to an extent “tie the government’s hands,” felt Sharma.

Housewife Navneet Sharan, whose husband Devi Sharan had headed the crew aboard the ill-fated IC 814, is proud of her husband who “exhibited cool and remarkable patience to ensure the safety of the passengers” during those eight days in the face of the gun-toting hijackers.

“Ten years on, I would say there should be a clear-cut policy to deal with such hijackings and the policy should be uniform and not make distinction between the lives that are at stake,” she said.

“Even then, the government went on the defensive because the relatives of the passengers reminded it about how Rubaiyya Saeed, daughter of the then Union home minister, was released in exchange for terrorists,” she said.