Fighting a legal battle to launch its regular commercial flight services to the US, the Jet Airways India has received a shot in its arm as an international terrorist watch group claiming patronage of two former US Presidents besides the Israeli and Indian governments has come out in strong support of its "foreign air carrier permit" application before the United States Department of Transportation.
Giving clean chit to the Jet Airways India with regard to its alleged terrorist links and any financial irregularities, the Ohio-based India Terrorism Victims Relief Foundation and Internationalwatch.org has urged the Department of Transportation to issue necessary permit to the popular private airlines from India with minimum procedural delay.
"Jet Airways is a highly qualified applicant. Delaying the process of entry into US skies by a reputable airline like Jet Airways India may even send a wrong signal to India, and perhaps other nations, who believe in such agreements," P Narayanan Kutty, Foundation executive director, said in an affidavit before the Department of Transportation June 21.
The India Terrorism Relief Foundation, which has filed several public interest litigations against financial institutions for their alleged terrorist links claims to have the former US presidents, Bill Clinton, and George Bush (senior) among its patrons, besides the former Union Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi; the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party president, Harsh Vardhan, and the senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Praveen Togadia, as its volunteer members.
Stating that the Internationalwatch.org was one of the world's "foremost authorities" in following the money trail of terrorists and terrorism allegations, Kutty claimed that it did carried its own 'exhaustive investigation' against the alleged terrorist and Al-Qaeda links of the Jet Airways India and its chief Naresh Goyal.
{{/usCountry}}Stating that the Internationalwatch.org was one of the world's "foremost authorities" in following the money trail of terrorists and terrorism allegations, Kutty claimed that it did carried its own 'exhaustive investigation' against the alleged terrorist and Al-Qaeda links of the Jet Airways India and its chief Naresh Goyal.
{{/usCountry}}Informing that the Internationalwatch.org spoke to various authorities around the world, who were in a position to know truth of such allegations, Kutty in his affidavit claimed the former Deputy Prime Minister of India, LK Advani, and the former RAW chief, B Raman, "categorically stated that absolutely no link was found between Jet Airways India (Goyal and his associates) and any terrorist organization".
Referring to its voluminous information collected by Internationalwatch.org, the 11-page affidavit, claimed that the allegations of the Jet Airways Inc. that Jet Airways India had a close links with the global terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda was "incorrect" and "baseless".
It alleged that the Jet Airways India presented a few highly scandalous, malicious and unproven reports on the foreign press as facts.
"As an organization dedicated to aiding terrorism victims in India, the Foundation is committed to stopping terrorism financing and terrorist activities in the US, India and essentially throughout the globe. If there was any discernible truth to the allegations made by the Jet Airways Inc., the Foundation and the Internationalwatch.org would have vigorously opposed the entry of Jet Airways India to the US skies," Kutty said.
Making a strong plea in favour of the Jet Airways (India) as was done by the Port Authority of New York and Newark, the affidavit said the regular flight between the two countries by this private airline under open skies agreement would enhance the economic, social and cultural ties between India and the United States.
"The Foundation and the Internationalwatch.org are convinced that Jet Airways India will provide safe and reliable services to travellers between the United States and India," Kutty said in his affidavit.
Under the open skies agreement signed between the two countries in April, Jet Airways had applied on May 2 for necessary permit to launch its inaugural Mumbai-Newark flight from June 23.
The application is still pending before the Department of Transportation mainly because of the serious "terrorist connection" allegation levied against it by the a little known Jet Airways Inc.
Officials in the Department of Transportation have said that the Jet India application was still under review and a decision would be taken only after its investigations with regard to the objections raised by the Jet Airways Inc was over. As a result of this the Jet India has had to postpone its proposed inaugural flight between the two countries, an event that has been eagerly awaited by the large Indian Diaspora in the US.