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The Kandahar hijack operation was "goofed up" as no one wanted to take a decision fearing loss of lives, according to former RAW chief AS Dulat.

The Kandahar hijack operation was "goofed up" as no one wanted to take a decision fearing loss of lives, according to former RAW chief AS Dulat.

Dulat, who was a member of the Crisis Management Group handling the 1999 hijack of the Indian Airlines IC 814 plane, said they could not decide that the plane should not leave Amritsar.

The former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief also said that initially the terrorists wanted 105 of them to be freed.

"It happened on 30th December, finally a call was taken to release three militants... Initially, they wanted 105 then it came down to 35, to 15 and finally our team that had gone to Kandahar managed to bring it down," he said.

He also said two of the three terrorists were in Jammu and Kashmir and then chief minister Farooq Abdullah was angry about letting them go.