Resolving the Hijack Crisis

RE: Reply #: 9 ZZ

a) vajapayee was not personally patrolling on border in kargil nor he can be asked a question why plane was not stopped at amritsar.

But he was personally patrolling all of India asking for votes on the premise that he was going to make India strong and safe! Is this how he does it?

b) vajapayee`s competence can be gauged from how he managed a given situation. in both cases, kargil and hijacking public got out with panic due to surprise. in case of hijacking, it happened from nepal. i would say he has managed the situation with reasonable grit and sensibility.

I believe the point here was why they were taken by surprise in the first place. It is no secret that the misfits and malcontents of the Islamic world are now congregating around the sub-continent, especially Afghanistan, like maggots around festering wounds to get their kicks now that the Middle East is getting it`s act together and chasing them out. And it is no secret that Kashmir is being given pride of place in their quest for the holy grail of liberation of ``Muslim lands`` whatever that may be. Given this situation, and given the fact that temperatures have risen considerably in the sub-continent ever since the BJP took power, isn`t it to be expected that the BJP Govt. be extra watchful for precisely the kinds of things that have happened in the past year?

Even Musharaff has said that the plane should have been detained in Amritsar by whatever means. After bungling on that count, all that the BJP Govt. can do is to say that there is a Pakistani hand in it. Duh!

b)we spend less than than world avg in defence and security though we have border disputes on both sides, sometime we have to pay that.

You take pride in that but what pride do you take in the nation being held hostage by a rag-tag set (despite Pakistan`s involvement) TWICE in a year? Do you know it takes more money to react than to be pro-active? How about the cost in human terms that we paid in Kargil and now in the hijack? Of course that doesn`t matter to you since anything that happens to them is collateral damage.

c) as far as what would i do if my mausa, bhatija, chacha, auntie was on plane, is an expected question. all the same u can not keep throwing bones to dogs. all countries which have long history of hijacking have come to this conclusion.

Are the ``mausa, bhatija, chacha, auntie`` second-class citizens that they can`t ask for what is constitutinally guaranteed, which is the safety of their loved ones?

The countries which are high-risk have already taken action to minimize such incidents which the BJP Govt. has done diddly. Israel, which faced even more grave threats to it`s security hasn`t had a hijacking in decades. The U.S. Govt. has been issuing warnings left, right and center that the looney-tunes of the Islamic world are planning something spectacular and taking action as in Seattle. What is this stupid Govt., which can talk the talk but can`t walk the walk, doing?

Veeresh:

I`d oppose your idea even though I admire the spirit it is rendered in.

A life is a life -- whether it is the unlucky hostages` or of those they replace.

What should India do? Keep talking. Stand firm. Do not give in. Swallow pride. Ask for US and Israeli commando help.

Win Afghan co-operation for a commando raid by outside trained forces. Hint at lifting of UN sanctions for their co-operation.

rgds

t

Re: #15

Thankyou for your grunts.

May the rooster swallow you!

t

Emailed to Chowk by Veeresh Malik


Going through the vast acres of media reports as well as responses at Chowk, and being reasonably close as well as somewhat associated with the action taking place in and around New Delhi in connection with this hijack, I would request readers at Chowk to consider a joint initiative from right thinking people of our two countries. It would go, very briefly, like this: those of us who believe that people will prevail and not necessarily governments or religions, can offer ourselves as replacement hostages using the kind offices of organisations like the ICRC, UN or the print/tv media. I would like to start this ball rolling by offering my wife and myself in the first instance. Maybe Chowk can open a bulletin board where more of us can do the same?

This is a serious proposition because I firmly believe in making the terms of adversity change into a larger terms of benefit kind of picture. I have personal experience of such hostage exchange programmes and would also offer my services to Chowk or any other credible organisation towards co-ordinating such a move.

Veeresh Malik

New Delhi

Good thinking Dr.Udayakumar!

But..What makes you think the hijackers will accept South Africa for a trial?May be their choice will be Saudi Arabia.Will India accept that? my advise is to sacrifice few indians and an airbus and teach them a lesson.

A NEW FRONT FOR INDIA

Four killed in attack on Valley police

SRINAGAR (Occupied Kashmir), Dec 27: Four people were killed when Kashmiri Mujahideen stormed the headquarters of the Indian police counter-insurgency wing here on Monday.

Police sources told AFP that Mujahideen attacked the headquarters of the Special Operation Group (SOG) at 5:15pm, taking its inmates by surprise. Two paramilitary personnel and a SOG personnel were killed as the raiders ran into the building firing automatic weapons.

One of the Mujahideen was also killed. At least 13 others, including two civilians, were injured. Police officials said firing was still going on late Monday in the SOG compound.

Army troops were rushed to the scene, together with police reinforcements, a police spokesman said.

Take it easy all do gooders and ex military strategists, all passengers have been released.

there is only one solution. May be considered a ruthless and callous one.Dont give in to the hijackers.All IATA members should resolve not to allow any plane to fly again if it has landed anywhere with hijackers on board.Yes it may mean death to so many passangers. It would be better than keeping the toll rising in future.

tariqlodi

aas: #7: Good point. Here are a few suggestions.

First priority should be to save the lives of the passengers. So for the time being, the Indian govt. should forget about not recognizing the Taliban, and not bringing in the UN on an issue related to Kashmir. Or trying to bring Pakistan into this as a culprit, at all costs. It will have plenty of time to do that after the hijacking is over. Also, I think Pakistan has decided (rightly in my opinion) to counter every false Indian allegation with a false one of its own. So right now India should refrain from getting into shouting contests with either Pakistan or Afghanistan. It should worry about the passengers.

A commando raid at the moment is not a good idea. The plane is outside Indian territory. The UN doesn`t have trained commandoes who will risk their lives in this kind of a situation. Also, the Indian govt. has stated that it does not want to involve the UN in this matter, since Kashmir is involved. No other country is going to volunteer its own commandoes. If the Indian govt. wants to raid the plane, it will have to be Indian commandoes. The only chance to do so was in Amritsar. If the hijackers have gernades, they can just blow up the plane, at least part of it.

If I remember correctly, the way these commando attacks are carried out is to first take a heat scan of the aircraft, and look for patterns. The patterns that move the most are the hijackers. Once they have been isolated, a group of commandoes enter the aircraft (perhaps disguised as negotiators, or secretly). At that point, they use shock bombs, which set off a high intensity light, and high frequency noise to stun the hijackers. The commandoes then fire, and kill the hijackers. I do not even know whether the Indian military has people trained to do these things. If it does how is it going to get the equipment into Afghanistan, and get the Afghans to agree. The other way of course is to just raid the plane, and hope for the best. There will definitely be casualities, in either case.

Now that the plane is in Afghanistan, I think the only chance the Indian govt. has is to negotiate. It does not want to do that either. So it is not going to negotiate, and it lost the opportunity to raid (unless the Indian govt. has been working on a secret plan to raid the aircraft, and that is why it has been delaying the negotiations).

If the Indian govt. is bent upon not releasing the Maulana, then it has to see what else the hijackers will agree to. If they do not agree to anything else, and they start killing people (which they may start doing, since they have already killed one person, and are hence now murderers), then the Indian govt. needs to take drastic action. Raiding the airplane, then becomes a major option. But how to do that when the plane is in another country? To do so, the Indian govt. needs to get the plane back into Indian territory, somehow.

``India should have stopped the plane when it landed at Amritsar,`` chief executive General Pervez Musharraf told reporters;

A report in Indian Express, Dec. 27, 1999

Gen. Musharraf is so right.

It is now hard for India to point a finger at anyone other than unpreparedness of India twice in this year. Futhermore, if India lets this drama to go on for some more time, I am sure, the families of the hostages and many other Indians will demand answers not games from present Indian leadership. The world will watch the plight of hostage families, and not the face of Islamic terrorism.

By not stopping the aircraft at Amritsar, India lost the right to claim Pakistan`s involvement. Even if there is involvement, tactically Pakistan`s involvement is rapidly becoming less important than India`s second tactical blunder(first one was India`s failure to detect the presence of intruders in Kargil and proactively act.) in this year. Afganistan is certainly not the place, and this is certainly not the time India should pick a fight with Pakistan. Sooner or later India will have to pay the price to end this hostage drama. The sooner is in India`s interest now.

ANIL KAPURIA

Very well written piece Udaykumar. I wish that
more people from India will echo your sentiments.
But in the mean time who do we believe?

The News International 12-27-99
RAW agent Kumar behind hijacking drama
(Updated at 2200 PST)
``ISLAMABAD: Indian RAW agent SPS Kumar is said to be on board the hijacked Indian airliner parked at Kandahar, and is controlling the hijacking drama, said PTV Monday night.
``Kumar is first secretary (covering post) in Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. He is inside the plane and controlling the hijacking drama,`` PTV reported tonight. Earlier, a spokesman of Foreign Office Tariq Altaf told reporters that an agent of Indian intelligence agency RAW
was on board the hijacked Indian Airlines which has been stranded at Afghanistan`s Kandahar airport over the past three days.``A reliable source told us that an Indian RAW agent is on board the aircraft. Now you can make your own conclusions,`` the spokesman
said.``

I see the catch 22 dilemma the Indian government faces - negotiating with the terrorists and releasing the Maluana and his cohorts could definitely lead to further acts of terrorism in the future.

I think one solution is to send an Indian trained or UN trained commmando unit into the plane. While this may raise casualities and cause probable death, the odds are in favor of the commandos due to 2 reasons:

1) the terrorists are apparently not well equipped. India`s Minister of Aviation has already stated that the passengers could have thwarted the attempt of the terrorists. According to reports they only have knives, and possibly grenades or small guns.

2. These guys do not seem like a well ironed unit of trained soldiers. Also after this long on a plane they must be extremely tired.

The only problem with this tactic is if the Taliban or the Indian government would allow it. maybe a UN sponsored commando team will be the best.

There have been at least two previous attempts by hostage taking to secure the release of Maulvi Masood. If the Government of India did not yield then, why should it yield now ?

In fact, it is almost universally acknowledged in India that the one precedent cited in the article of yielding to hostage taking was a very bad one.

Meanwhile, don`t believe all that you read in the newspapers. Just the issue of Masood`s brother, allegedly a hijacker, CNN, Dawn, the Hindustan Times, Times of India etc. all have different stories. According to one, Masood is an only son, according to another, Masood`s father says that Masood`s brother is in Mecca. According to a third, Masood has five brothers and six sisters. And so on.

-arun gupta

I still don`t see solutions proposed. Does anyone have anything constructive to add in that regard?

RE: Reply #: 2 ZZ

You idiot,

What if your near and dear ones were trapped in a plane for a couple of days with the possibility of them losing their lives? Would you display your bravado in that situation?

As for Kargil, the Vajpayee Government blew it for not having anticipated such a situation and then had to embark on an operation costing the exchequer thousands of crores trying to salvage it. Where do you think that money comes from? The BJP`s private coffers? Do you pay taxes in India to know know how it feels to cough up more money because these idiots blew it big time? I know how I feel!

The BJP Govt. is at the bungling end once again for not having acted swiftly and trapped the plane in Amritsar itself where everything would have been under it`s control rather than in the hands of the two regimes which are the most antagonistic towards India.

The BJP idiots can`t even ensure the sanctity of India`s borders and the safety of it`s citizens today but have all the time in the world to rant and rave about irrelevant things that happened hundreds of years ago like Babri Masjid etc..

Finally who is going to salvage our prestige and loss of face in the eyes of the rest of the world in the face of this humiliation by a couple of goons?

I am glad the relatives of the victims are taking the government to task for their ineptitude. As the saying goes, if they cant s * *t they should get off the pot.

Relatively balanced article; although somewhat idealistic.

First of all, this hijacking, at least for the time being needs to be considered what it is, i.e. a hijacking of an aircraft by a small group of people. The first and foremost responsibility should be to ge the hostages out. I have yet to see anything like this before in a hijacking, however. People seem more concerned about Indo-Pak relations, accusing Pakistan, South Asian peace etc. etc., rather than the event at hand, i.e. the hijacking itself. Even the Indian govt. has delayed its actions because of its, ``political considerations.`` It should first get this problem solved, and then worry about blaming Pakistan or anyone else.

Regarding taking the plane to South Africa. It is an interesting suggestion, however I do not think the Indian govt. will agree to that. It does not want anything related to Kashmir to be handled by any other party accept India. That is why it refused even the UN reps to hanlde this issue.

Regarding the commando attack suggested by temporal. I think it is a bit too late for that. The only way it could have been carried, out by India, was if it was done in Amritsar. I still do not understand why the Indian govt. allowed the plane to fly out of Amritsar, if it had no plans to give into the demands of the hijackers. It should have kept the plane there, and raided it. That is the only way to go, if India on a matter of principle, is opposed to giving into the demands of the hijackers. The hijackers have killed one person. They now know that they will be considered murderers. So they have nothing to lose by killing more people.

If I remember correctly, a few months ago, a PIA aircraft was hijacked, and asked to be flown to India. The pilot flew around for a while, and landed in a remote part of Pakistan, and told the hijacker that they were in India. Pakistanis dressed like Indians came on board, and overpowered the hijackers (I don`t have the detailed facts). Something like this could have been done here.

The Indian govt. either should have been offensive (raiding the aircraft, and accepting the casualities that would have occurred), or defensive (accpeting the demands of the hijackers, and releasing the prisoner). Having done neither, it has put the passengers in a very dangerous position.