Indian Airlines Plane Hijacked

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keshi #155:

Interesting report on how passengers on IC814 were not shown hijackers pictures before or since Mr. Advani made that statement.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jan/10onkar.htm

rgds

t

truth #146: anarayan #147: concerned #151:

Folks, apologise about my Goebbels remarks. Was just ticked off. Usually I do not indulge in these pissing matches, as you probably know.

My views were clearly elucidated in the beginnig of this thread or the other one. To recall, I began by condemning all, and I mean ALL, forms of terrorsim.

And I implored upon the Govt. of India not to negotiate with the terrorists. And also put forth some ideas about an ever ready anti hijacking task force under UN auspices to be financed by a simple levy of fifty cents on each IATA ticket purchased. (sadly, amidst this hoopla, not one responded to it.)

Why is assigning blames so necessary? Though we all must do so for analytical reasons, under the present conditions it serves only one purpose. To shift the political blame from `us` to `them`.

Gentleman, with the past history between our countries, both governments have case histories and data available about thousands of each others citizens. With the resources of the state it is not diffcult to select five most `suitable` candidates from the dossiers, grab them, break them to confess and do a whirling dance before the world.

I am so confident of their abilities to elicit confession that I can make this claim. Give me some innocent people that you want to pin any blame on, in any major city of India or Pakistan of your choice. Their confessions of crimes they never commiteed will be on your desks inside a week. Seriously, I would never do such a thing: but the stark possibilty exists.

I blame the short sighted policies of India and Pakistan for the `intifada` in Kashmir. We can debate about apportioning the degree of blame till dooms day. But the intifada demands a political solution.

regards

t

vineet:

``Although Pakistani officials earlier said the hijackers would be arrested if they stepped foot in their country, there was no effort to detain Azhar.``

Since when Azhar became a hijacker?

``Indian Home Minister L K Advani, at a press conference in New Delhi, said the photographs of the five men who had commandeered the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in Afghanistan had been shown to the hostages who had identified every single one of them.``

I have read this in all major papers from India today. And in the same papers, during and after the crisis, they always made a point to mention that the hijackers always covered their faces. So `every single` monkey cap was identified? Long live Goebbel?

rgds

t

Who Aids Terror?

Washington Post, Editorial

Tuesday, January 4, 2000; Page A14

THE AFTERMATH of the Indian Airlines hijacking presents something of a puzzle. The governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan have condemned terrorism and publicly refused asylum to the hijackers. Yet the hijackers are thought to have escaped from Afghanistan, the scene of their piracy, and into Pakistan.

Afghanistan`s ruling Taliban militia tried to use the hijacking to appear responsible, and so to soften the consensus behind U.N. sanctions imposed on their regime. To that end, they warned the hijackers that the execution of hostages would trigger an assault on the aircraft. But once the hostages were safely released, the Afghans could have done more to prevent the hijackers from escaping. They allowed them to drive off, with one Afghan official accompanying them as a hostage. That hostage has now returned, but seemingly without information about the hijackers` identity or whereabouts.

The Pakistanis, for their part, rightly refused to receive the hijackers at their consulate in Afghanistan. They protest that the terrorists may not be in Pakistan, and add that they will be arrested if they are. But Indian and Afghan officials say the hijackers have crossed into Pakistan near the city of Quetta, about two hours` drive from Kandahar. Although this is a sparsely guarded border, Pakistan had ample time to prepare for the hijackers` arrival. There is no evidence of a serious effort to capture them.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are trying to have it both ways on terrorism. They play host to terrorist groups, yet wax indignant when terrorists hijack an aircraft--or, as in the case of Osama bin Laden, resident of Afghanistan, blow up U.S. embassies. This limp ambivalence will encourage more hijackings and bombings. Both governments need to catch and deport offenders if they want their anti-terrorist rhetoric to be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, India`s government must resist the temptation to exploit its neighbors` misbehavior. In the wake of the hijacking, India is denouncing Pakistan as a terrorist state and lobbing shells across the border; the Pakistanis claim five civilians were killed on Monday. The hijacking has already brought the terrorizing of more than 150 hostages, the murder of one, and the release of three of the hijackers` extremist comrades. It must not be allowed to trigger another war on the subcontinent.

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

Terrorism will dog us forever

The Indian Government`s capitulation to hijackers is a huge setback that will encourage similar crimes, writes GERARD HENDERSON.

IT WAS a huge relief for the survivors of Indian Airlines Flight 184 from Kathmandu to New Delhi, including Australian Peter Ward, but a significant setback in the war against terrorism.

Let there be no equivocation. The last plane hijack of the 20th century ended in almost total surrender to the terrorists` demands. The hijackers set free 155 hostages (one passenger had already been murdered) only after the Indian Government agreed to release three militants it was holding - Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtag Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheikh.

The Indian Government had reason to be deeply concerned that passengers and crew on Flight 184 would be killed if it did not give in to the demands to release Masood Azhar. He is a Pakistan-born leader of the Harkut ul Mujaheddin organisation, which is attempting to establish Islamic rule in India-administered Kashmir.

The passengers` stories indicate that the hijackers were cool-headed and fanatical. In other words, revolutionary ideologues. India was in no position to overfly one unfriendly Islamic nation (Pakistan) in order to storm an aircraft on the ground in another (Afghanistan). Consequently there was little option but to negotiate. The essential problem turned on the fact that the cave-in was so absolute.

India is not the first nation to surrender to terrorist demands and it will not be the last. It is just that victory by Harkut ul Mujaheddin`s militants in this instance is likely to encourage others, including those who wish to drive India out of Kashmir, but in no sense limited to them.

The hijack was a favoured terrorist method of the 1970s and 1980s. Due primarily to increased airport security, it diminished somewhat in the 1990s as a revolutionary tactic in favour of the bomb. This led some to believe that hijackers were a phenomenon of the past. The events of December in Nepal have changed this (false) perception.

There is really nothing new about terrorism, except that strategies change from time to time. As Walter Laqueur demonstrated in his book Terrorism (1977), terrorists were active in Russia at the end of the 19th century. The Russian Social Revolutionary Party rationalised violence as one legitimate means of opposing Tzarist rule.

The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 was the spark that ignited World War I. The principal actor in this terrorist attack was the 20-year-old Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip. He and his (even younger) co-conspirators were members of the Serbian Black Hand and dedicated to the cause that Bosnia should become part of Serbia. Sounds familiar.

The Irish revolutionary Michael Collins perfected the tactic of urban guerilla warfare which the Irish Republican Army (IRA) used with considerable effect against the British during the Irish War of Independence. Collins later signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and, for his troubles, was assassinated by that section of the IRA which favoured the continuation of political violence over the compromise that was on offer.

Terrorism was not all that prevalent from the 1920s until the 1960s. It then re-emerged in Northern Ireland as a tactic engaged in by the Provisional IRA and, later, Protestant militias, and also in the Middle East as an initiative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and like-minded groups. Today surviving IRA and Palestinian leaders are negotiating cease-fires leading to possible peace deals.

In the West in the 1960s and 1970s, political terrorism had its roots in left-wing organisations. More notably the Weathermen, Symbionese Liberation Army and Black Panthers in the United States; the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany; the Red Brigades in Italy and ETA in the Basque area of Spain.

In the 1980s and 1990s, home-grown terrorists in Western nations tended to belong to extreme right-wing organisations. This description fits Timothy McVeigh, the Gulf War hero who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing. It appears that McVeigh acted almost alone and not on the instructions of any identified right-wing organisation. Even so, some US right-wing militias are involved in terrorism against the state, which they regard as the enemy of the people.

The US, as the only world super power in the post-Cold War era, is under constant threat from internationally motivated terrorism. The 1993 bombing of Manhattan`s World Trade Centre and the destruction of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya) in the late 1990s demonstrate that Washington has real reason to express concern about the safety of its citizens inside and outside the United States.

The Clinton Administration has evidence to indicate that Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian-born and Afghanistan-based terrorist, is behind many of the attacks on US citizens and property. It is probable, but not proven, that bin Laden backs the Harkut ul Mujaheddin.

In its political usage, terrorism is war by other means. No nation can seriously threaten US security but an individual with gun or bomb or biochemical weapon can make parts of American society dysfunctional, for a while at least. Terrorism can be controlled to some extent and, possibly, reduced. This will take resources and money. It also requires that military, police, security and intelligence operatives should be well trained and properly rewarded for the important work which they do.

Then there is the bigger picture. Should nations strike at states which they believe are instigating or protecting terrorists? Richard Perle (assistant defence secretary in President Reagan`s administration) says ``yes``. He maintains that the US ``should adopt a policy of retaliating against statessupporting terrorism whenever terrorists strike against us and those strikes should do real damage to military and intelligence facilities``.

Robert Gates (CIA director during the Bush Administration) holds a different view. He doubts whether ``President Ronald Reagan`s attack on Libya in 1986 chastened Muammar Gaddafi and essentially ended Libyan terrorism``. And gives credence to the view that ``the Libyan bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988 was, in fact, in retaliation for the 1986 bombing attack on Libya``.

Gates advocates the use of force, at times, ``against the sponsors of terrorism``. But he also favours promoting human rights by pursuing ``policies and strategies that in the long run weaken terrorism`s roots``. Fair enough, in theory at least. Yet, as Walter Laqueur observed in the mid-1970s, ``there were no terrorist movements in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy nor are there any in the communist regimes``.

Sometimes today`s terrorist can be tomorrow`s liberator. But, also, a contemporary terrorist can be a latter-day totalitarian or authoritarian despot. Michael Collins came to preside (albeit briefly) over the democratic Irish Free State which, in time, became Ireland. Vladimir Lenin favoured political murder before the Russian Revolution of 1917. As a Soviet despot, he made political murder part of state policy. Joseph Stalin continued in this tradition.

Terrorists may come and terrorists may go. But terrorism is likely to be with us forever. Regrettably, it is but one of the risks of life.

Gerard Henderson is the executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Ex-public schoolboy was exchanged `militant`

By Peter Popham

4 January 2000

A former British public schoolboy who was head of his house and school chess champion is one of the key figures in the Indian Airlines hijack crisis that ended on New Year`s Eve with the release of 155 hostages.

Ahmad Omar Sayyed Sheikh was the third ``militant`` held in Indian jails whose release was procured by the hijackers in exchange for the freedom of the airline passengers.

The son of a businessman from Lahore, Pakistan, who now runs a textile goods firm based in Commercial Road, east London, Sheikh, a British national, was comfortably raised in Wanstead, an outer London suburb, and went to Forest School, Epping, where he gained four A-levels.

But at the London School of Economics, where he studied mathematics, he is said to have come under the influence of Islamic fundamentalist students who convinced him to dedicate his life to jihad – holy war.

His perfect English accent turned out to be a boon for the terrorist group, Harkat-ul-Ansar, with which he became involved, when they decided to start kidnapping Western tourists as a way to secure the release of their imprisoned comrades. In Delhi, in 1994, he befriended a young English traveller called Rhys Partridge, and persuaded him to travel with him to Saharanpur, a fruit-growing town in the hills 90 miles north of Delhi, where Mr Partridge found himself taken prisoner and shackled in a tiny room.

Two friends were persuaded to go looking for him, and they, too, were taken prisoner by Sheikh and his accomplices.

Sheikh`s immaculate English startled them. He would reminisce about his time at Forest School, where he was an outstanding scholar, and at the LSE; then with a swing of mood he would threaten to decapitate them. The three hostages were only rescued when police launched a raid on the hideout, during which Sheikh received a gunshot wound. Had the police not intervened the hostages believe they would have been killed.

Currently on holiday together in Australia, they described Sheikh`s release as ``a disgrace and a signal to others to do the same``.

Sheikh was arrested on terrorism charges, but because of the sluggish pace of Indian justice he had not been brought to trial when the order came to release him. His whereabouts since leaving Kandahar with the hijackers are unknown.

It is rumoured that he may be in Lahore, his family`s Pakistani base.

````I do not think the whereabouts of the hijackers are still mystery, the Taleban authorities have clearly announced that the hijackers had headed for Quetta. The Foreign Minister for Taleban had himself informed me they have given then ten hours to clear out of Afghanistan and they do not want them there. So, I have no doubts in my mind that those ten hours have long ended and they are in or around Quetta``, Singh told the BBC in an interview.`` (Pakistan Link)

``Afghanistan rejects Indian claim

By Our Staff Correspondent

SPIN BULDAK (Pak-Afghan border), Jan 2: The information minister of Afghanistan, Abdul Hayee Mutmaeen, has refuted the claim of the Indian foreign minister that the hijackers and released freedom fighters have entered Pakistan via Quetta.

Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, the Afghan information minister said: ``They (the hijackers) left Afghanistan within the stipulated deadline.

They are not in Afghanistan. We are not bound to reveal their whereabouts.```` (DAWN)

Would the hijackers really be stupid enough to tell anyone, especially the Afghan authorities, or Jaswanth Singh, where they were going. How is it that Jaswanth Singh seems to know before hand exactly everything about the hijacking, and the hijackers? Did they tell him where they would be staying in Quetta, as well?

RE #: 119 Umairr

``India seems to have some of the most sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in the world. How can India intercept so many messages in its airspace, yet not intercept its own airliner? It seems like the Indian govt. is trying to do anything it can to get Pakistan involved somehow or the other, and to cover up its own mistake. I hope none of the Indian citizens are buying into this.``

I agree with you on this. I hope the BJP hot air balloons don`t release any more hot air so that they can come down to earth. After having made a mega-bungle in letting the aircraft leave Amritsar after which they had absolutely no control over the proceedings, it would make sense to cool down, think calmly, collect facts and make a presentation to the rest of the world. Any such case takes at least a few days to gather evidence after which it has to be sifted and a judgement made.

The law is clearly on India`s side and the world doesn`t take kindly to hijackings (which is why Pakistan chased the plane out of it`s territory). The West knows that just about any aircraft flying in the world will have a share of it`s citizens whose lives are also jeopardized (as in this case) so it won`t be a silent spectator.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the hijackers are either in Afghanistan itself or have gone to Pakistan. The latter is more likely because of home-field advantage. So Pakistan is in the hot seat to prove it`s innocence, no matter what.

Given all of these circumstances, consistent pressure by the World Community on Pakistan to cough up the criminals just like Kansi of the CIA headquarters killings fame and the WTC bombings suspect will eventually bear fruit. BTW, why is it that these guys congregrate in and around Pakistan? Is there something in the water there?

For now I`ll be satisfied if the BJP windbags just shut up.

RE #: 119 Umairr

``India seems to have some of the most sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in the world. How can India intercept so many messages in its airspace, yet not intercept its own airliner? It seems like the Indian govt. is trying to do anything it can to get Pakistan involved somehow or the other, and to cover up its own mistake. I hope none of the Indian citizens are buying into this.``

I agree with you on this. I hope the BJP hot air balloons don`t release any more hot air so that they can come down to earth. After having made a mega-bungle in letting the aircraft leave Amritsar after which they had absolutely no control over the proceedings, it would make sense to cool down, think calmly, collect facts and make a presentation to the rest of the world. Any such case takes at least a few days to gather evidence after which it has to be sifted and a judgement made.

The law is clearly on India`s side and the world doesn`t take kindly to hijackings (which is why Pakistan chased the plane out of it`s territory). The West knows that just about any aircraft flying in the world will have a share of it`s citizens whose lives are also jeopardized (as in this case) so it won`t be a silent spectator.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the hijackers are either in Afghanistan itself or have gone to Pakistan. The latter is more likely because of home-field advantage. So Pakistan is in the hot seat to prove it`s innocence, no matter what.

Given all of these circumstances, consistent pressure by the World Community on Pakistan to cough up the criminals just like Kansi of the CIA headquarters killings fame and the WTC bombings suspect will eventually bear fruit. BTW, why is it that these guys congregrate in and around Pakistan? Is there something in the water there?

For now I`ll be satisfied if the BJP windbags just shut up.

Propoganda indeed cuts both ways.

Leafing through a MiddleEastern newspaper, I came across three articles on a single page. One talked about how Pakistan was dissapointed by India`s ludicrous claim that the hijacking was an ISI-planned operation and nothing else. A second article had a Nepalese minister replying in blunt terms that the Nepalese people were offended by Indian diplomatic claims that one of the hijackers was Nepalese and that the Nepalese government was to be blamed as well. The third article was a note by Taliban militia calling India`s statement about Osama Bin Laden being the brains behind the hijacking a ``useless and untimely propoganda scheme``.

In the midst of it all, while Mr. Vajpayee does his best to save his seat, no Indian minister - or Indian intelligence for that matter - could ever answer the following simple three questions:

1. Why was the plane not prevented from leaving Amritsar? (The time factor excuse - according to the BBC - does not apply, since authorities knew the plane was hijacked as soon as it had ENTERED Indian air space from the border which is all the way across the country).

2. The plane had landed in Dubai as well. Why weren`t the authorities in Dubai asked to prevent the plane from leaving as they were in Lahore, and even after the plane left, why weren`t they condemned for it as Pakistan was?

3. The inital passenger list released by the Indian media did not include any Pakistanis at all. Where on earth did four Pakistanis turn up from and when they did enter the plane, what nationality did they enter under(this can be easily figured out through the passenger list by process of elimination)? All this is, of course, after the hijackers were mentioned to be Nepalese, Kashmiris, Afghanis, Chehnyians and even Indians.

Does anybody in India know that the two Indian passengers released earlier were treated in Pakistani hospitals?

And the food for the aircraft while it stayed in Afghanistan came from Pakistan?

In a region where India does its best to cover its own impotence in handling a crisis situation by scapegoating Pakistan for everything (quite obviously in the hopes of having it declared a terrorist state), it would not surprise me if I found an article in the Indian media with the headline:

``Pakistan`s ISI behind massive floods and other natural disasters.``

Ummair: I responded to your posts by incorrectly posting in the other hijacking thread.

``KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 2 — India’s top security adviser on Sunday accused neighbor — and nuclear rival — Pakistan of having links with the five men who hijacked an Indian Airlines plane last week, holding 155 people hostage. Brajesh Mishra said on television that Indian intelligence had intercepted radio conversations between militant groups in Kashmir, confirming that Pakistan was involved in the eight-day debacle.: (MSNBC)

India seems to have some of the most sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in the world. How can India intercept so many messages in its airspace, yet not intercept its own airliner? It seems like the Indian govt. is trying to do anything it can to get Pakistan involved somehow or the other, and to cover up its own mistake. I hope none of the Indian citizens are buying into this.

Re:Umairr#116

The unfortunate hijacking incident has once again shown how silly both India and Pakistan are. They have a reflexive, immature hostility that makes them the laughing stock of the rest of the world. India should not point fingers unless it has hard evidence to back its claims. Similarly it was quite ludicrous for Pakistan to claim the whole thing was a RAW operation, even after the plane had left Lahore for Dubai. The mood in India is very sombre and depressed with the outcome and people are clamoring for retribution in Kashmir. You can couple that with Musharraf`s declaration that Pakistan`s policy has changed to ``Kashmir first`` rather than ``Kashmir and other issues simultaneously``. It seems like we are in for a fairly miserable Y2K in South Asia.

I suggest that perhaps we should have a development race in South Asia with Kashmir as the prize. Both India and Pakistan would race to reach the current development statistics of say South Korea or Taiwan on a per capita basis. Whoever reaches it first gets Kashmir. Until then, Kashmir maintains status quo. Any acts of terrorism from either side would lead to reduction in overall points to reach the goal. This would be a great challenge to Indians and Pakistanis to use their brains for a change to help develop their nations. Let them prove the superiority of secular democracy, islamic system etc, in the only provable manner i.e. impact on people`s lives. What about the opinions of Kashmiris ? Heck, either way they win and get to become a developed land. I say, let the games begin.

Umairr

Just few points which might be related to your replies 110, 111 and 116 (just acting as a devil`s advocate, I loved it how the Indians got their noses rubbed into it)

1. The BJP is a political party, which is to say that they are supposed to be people who can be shrill and very single issue indeed. They can and frequently do say things which governments cannot say. Their utterances can really be compared to some of our own parties. I suspect the indians take as much notice of them as we do to ours.

2. A second point which was raised was that Pakistan seems to be the logical destination of the hijackers. Looking at an atlas, the chances of them heading into the central Asian republics or Iran is equally possible. Ummm, if i was one of them, and I had 3 Pakistani / kashmiri freedom fighters released, then I would much rather take them across a border which was very porous and to a place where I can be welcomed. Hmmm, I would go home, no? Logically speaking, so to say. If they were not from Pakistan or Kashmir, ummm, why would they want to release of Pakistani / Kashmir freedom fighters?

3. As for Indians believing in what dear old Jaswant Singh was saying and you being disappointed in how they were getting sucked into such thinking. I suspect, what someone from the other side will turn around and say, and this is coming from a country which has such lovely times with democracy, development, corruption and military rule. On the other hand, if you do look at it logically, Umairr, there are more indications towards us being implicated than not. On the other hand, Jaswant Singh is acting just like what is expected, the Indians fell down majorly and they have to blame somebody, no?, might as well as go for Pakistan, they do have sufficient precedent, no?

4. I could not but help grinning away at your statement, ``It is unfortunate that the Indian govt. tries to blame everything related to Kashmir to Pakistan``, that, my dear sir, is the diplomatic statement of the century!!!!!

just stirring the pot a bit

cheers

bd

Do these BJP guys ever shut up.

``BJP asserts Pakistan to prove her innocence (Updated at 2100 PST)

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee`s party BJP said on Sunday that Pakistan must ``prove its innocence`` by handing over the hijackers of an Indian plane and the released militants to India. ``If Pakistan is really innocent as it pretends to be, let it hand over the hijackers along with the militants back to India,`` BJP spokesman Venkaiah Naidu said.`` (NEWS, Pakistan)

How is it possible for Pakistan to hand over hijackers when no one knows where they went, and no one even knows what they look like. And how has the BJP all of a sudden come to the conclusion that they were Pakistani, when the BJP initially stated that their were no Pakistanis on the plane. The BJP also stated that they did not have any other information about the hijackers. Did four of the Indians on the plane change their nationality? If they were so bent upon catching the hijackers, they should stopped the plane in Amritsar, and raided it. I read an Indian article that the RSS has really been getting on Vajpayee to blame Pakistan at all costs, and he has started to give in.

There is no way anyone can know where the hijackers went, and who they are, since no one saw them, and the hijackers themselves did not reveal their identity to anyone. Any claims regarding the hijackers are thus false and baseless. In that sense the Pakistani RAW agent claim is just as valid (or invalid) as the Indian claim of the hijackers being Pakistani. I am surprised and disappointed that so many Indians believe everything the Jaswanth Singh says. Is he an oracle of some kind? Or do people in India not think for themselves, and rely on the politicians to do all the thinking.