Why the Modi government should declassify records on IC-814 hijacking
Congress and National Conference have targeted the Vajpayee government for submitting to Pak terrorists at Kandahar. The truth is more complicated
The hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Nepal to Kandahar on December 24, 1999 and subsequent release of three terrorists in exchange for hostages to date remains shrouded in mystery and deep state conspiracies.
The hijacking accompanied with conspiracies and terror politics have recently been revived by an eponymous fictional drama aired on an OTT platform with then Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Amarjit Singh Dulat and his then RAW colleague Anand Arni, who was also part of the Indian negotiating team, adding fuel to fire by giving their version of the transpired events to the media.
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Dulat says that Ajit Doval, then lead negotiator and now National Security Advisor, was sending frantic messages from Kandahar to resolve the issue fast and basically give in to demands of the flight hijackers. Arni says that the hijackers, led by now Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar Alvi’s elder brother Athar Ibrahim Alvi and coordinated by his younger brother Rauf Asghar Alvi, had demanded the release of 105 terrorists in turn of hostages and the negotiation team had pared this demand to only to release of Masood Azhar on December 29 and then upped it back to release of three terrorists on December 30, 1999. Arni said that the negotiating team talked to released terrorists before they and the hijackers were taken away.
For the record, the IC-814 hijacking was handled by then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra with intelligence inputs from RAW Chief Dulat and IB Chief Shyamal Dutta in New Delhi under guidance from then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Home Minister L K Advani.
The Cabinet Secretary at that time was Prabhat Kumar and the CEO of Indian Airlines was Anil Baijal. The negotiating team send to Kandahar was led by then IB’s Additional Director Ajit Doval, who then and even now has a hardline on Pak terrorists and their front Hurriyat as compared to Dulat, Joint Secretary (Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran) Vivek Katju, Joint Director (operations) Nehchal Sandhu, RAW was represented by C D Sahay and Anand Arni. Doval and Sandhu, who later went on to head IB, had worked together all through the Punjab and Kashmir terrorism since the 1980s and are largely regarded as finest counter-terror operatives of IB by their peers.
Given that Doval is now the NSA and Sandhu does not talk to the media at all, the Modi government should think in terms of declassifying the record on IC-814 hijacking with both Dulat, who has no love lost for Doval since Kashmir days, and Arni giving their version of events.
Since I reported the IC-814 hijacking for the Hindustan Times and have closely following terrorism emanating from Pakistan for the past 25 years, it is important to lay out facts as I know it after my off the record conversations with the then NSA Brajesh Mishra post-Vajpayee government being voted out of power in 2004.
Here are facts :
· The negotiating team led by Doval had no access (physical or radio contact) to either hijackers of IC-814 or with the released terrorists at any point of time. The Doval team was negotiating with the then Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and Civil Aviation Minister Akhtar Muhammad Osmani.
The two Taliban leaders were taking direct instructions from Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, who was stationed 25 kilometers from the Kandahar airport. No marks for guessing whom Mullah Omar was talking to as Pakistani deep state ISI headed by then Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed was behind the hijacking. Ahmed was very close to Mullah Omar and was kicked out of ISI for his role in 9/11 terror attacks and the financing of Hamburg Cell led by Al Qaida operative Mohamed Atta.
· The initial demand of hijackers was the shroud of slain Harkat-ul-Ansar terrorist Sajjad Afghani, who lies buried in Jammu, and 36 terrorists in Indian jails. Afghani was arrested with Masood Azhar by IB from Srinagar outskirts in 1994 with Pakistan government even issuing a note verbale for release of Azhar who was carrying a Portuguese passport that time.
This demand was pared down to three—Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh and a small-time Kashmiri terrorist Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—by the negotiating team and at no stage was this demand reduced to only one.
· Given his experience in handling Pakistan terrorists as Additional Director handling Kashmir, Ajit Doval wanted more time to negotiate with the Taliban and conveyed it to then NSA Brajesh Mishra.
However, with Vajpayee government under pressure from families of the hostages, Congress and National Conference politicians whose requests were hugely amplified by the visual and print media at that time, Mishra conveyed to Doval that he wanted hostages back before the turn of the millennium. The hostage recovery aircraft was a Boeing 737 that entered Afghanistan after clearance from the Zhob Air Traffic Control in Pakistan.
The same plane overcrowded with hostages sitting and some negotiators standing in the cockpit took off from Kandahar before the last sunset of the 20th century.
· With the hostile Taliban regime at Kandahar airport and Mullah Omar running the show, the released terrorists were taken to the IC-814 plane on a Toyota Land HiLux cruiser for the hijackers to visually confirm that Azhar, Sheikh and Zargar had been released.
After this the hostages and negotiating team were brought back to India on December 31, 1999 before midnight and no one knew where the released terrorists or the hijackers were taken. There is speculation that Masood Azhar went to meet Mullah Omar and the hijackers crossed over to Pakistan via Zhob ATC crossing in Balochistan.
· After India was humiliated by IC-814 hijacking, it was suggested by Doval that remaining 33 terrorists, whose release the hijackers had demanded, should be segregated in separate jails and taken care off as soon as possible as there could be more hijackings. This proposal had approval from Home Minster L K Advani and then IB Director Shyamal Dutta. The proposal was shot down by Brajesh Mishra. No marks for guessing on whose advice.
