Resolving the Hijack Crisis

Lo! Bhutto reborn, this time in India. Vajbayee will bring the rabbit out of the hat! At a suitable time!

HEY ALL YOU GROWN-UP FIGHTING KIDS!!!

Are you forgetting the whole point that we are coming together over here for? It`s NOT to continue the bickering and fighting that our irresponsible governments want us to live in.

We are hopefully here to be able to find common ground that we can build constructively from, not disjointed hills that we can lob more grenades off of. Please keep your replies brief and your tone sweet, if you want people to actually listen to you with interest. The only way we are going to come out of this un-bloody is if we can find common ground. I dare any of you hotbloods to propose a solution worth more than 2 cents!!!

well, against my practice of posting entire articles on chowk, this one deserves the `vip treatment`.

from the latest india today at

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000110/cover1.html

At Kathmandu airport a diplomat passes a bag to a transit passenger ...

By Farzand Ahmed

At the best of times the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu is a madhouse. Last October, a mentally deranged visitor thought it was his natural habitat. He ambled into the airport, strolled casually through what feigned to be security, meandered his way through the tarmac and finally lodged himself comfortably in the cockpit of a parked Thai Airways aircraft. ``We have the best security arrangements at TIA,`` says Nepal`s Home Minister Purna Bahadur Khadka.

At noon a day before Christmas, a car with a slightly grand number plate, 42-CD-14, drew up before the airport. Two gentlemen, one with an undistinguished cabin baggage, strolled into the departure lounge, walked officiously past the passengers awaiting the departure of a delayed Indian Airlines flight to Delhi and went briskly up the stairs to the VIP lounge. Anxiously awaiting them was a ``transit`` passenger who had arrived by PK 806 some three hours earlier. The three exchanged meaningful glances and the bag changed hands. A few minutes later a satisfied Arshad Chima, first secretary in the Pakistan Embassy, was negotiating his way back to work through Kathmandu`s bazaar traffic.

The ``transit`` passenger spent the next two hours anxiously eyeing the trickle of passengers crossing the unmanned metal detectors to await the boarding call for IC 814 to Delhi. Like the others, S.A. Qazi too collected his boarding pass and strolled into the departure area, where he was joined by the transit passenger and three others. The contents of the bag were discreetly distributed. When the flight was finally announced, all five entered the aircraft.

There were 178 passengers on board the flight to Delhi; only 177 submitted their embarkation cards. ``Yes, there was a transit passenger from the PIA flight who may have been counted as an extra crew. Also, there`s nothing unusual in diplomats frequenting the departure area. Beyond that I can`t say anything,`` said a harried TIA General Manager Medini Prasad Sharma.

The identity of the transit passenger still remains a mystery. He may have been Ahmad Sheikh, Qazi`s co-passenger in the executive class, or S.A. Sayyed or Z.I. Mistri. There is a presumption that the group may have included Gajendra Man Tamrakar, a Nepali businessman -- some say smuggler -- and small-time TV comedian.

Chima`s name had been linked to the 20-kg RDX haul in 1998 which was meant for India. And he is not the first Pakistani diplomat accused of running a local office for the ISI. In 1994 Gul Rehman, the political secretary, and Imtiaz, the third secretary, in the Pakistani Embassy, were found to patronise Hotel Karnali, a well-known ISI base.

Kathmandu airport is chaotic during check-in, there`s no transit lounge or proper security. But Assistant Civil Aviation Minister Narain Singh Pun argues, ``We have the best facilities. Yet there can be some human error.`` Whatever be the case, all officials on duty at the time IC 814 took off have been suspended. There were 250 people at work on the second shift at the airport that day. Some months ago their colleagues had been suspended for escorting gold smugglers to an aircraft.

A six-member commission has been set up to investigate the lapses at the TIA. The inquiry team is headed by former police chief Hem Bahadur Singh. Despite these impressive credentials, Singh`s appointment has left the Nepal Government with egg on its face. Soon after his retirement, he had rented out his house to Mirza Dilshad Beg, the slain minister linked to Dawood Ibrahim and the ISI. Singh, however, denies any complicity with the underworld, ``When I rented out my house in 1990 to Beg, then an MP, I didn`t know his background. When I found out that Babloo Srivastava was living there I got the house vacated.`` Srivastava, another Dawood associate, is of course in an Indian jail now.

The Nepal Government had initially asked three retired judges to head the inquiry panel. All of them refused. Singh was the fourth choice. To some this is evidence of the fact that important people in Nepal may not want the unravelling of the nexus between influential locals and their ISI partners. Like IC 814, the inquiry could be a flight into darkness.

RE #: 128 sadna

``How did Kargil contribute to peace and stability in the region which India`s rhetoric is jeopardizing so much now?``

Pakistan plays cricket matches as if they were wars, and fights wars as if they are cricket matches. That`s the real problem.

dear bahmad:

i would like to wish you and all others on chowk a very happy and productive new year!

i had posted a detailed reply to your post about dr rizvi`s article but somehow it doesn`t appear here. i would try to summarize what i had written.

the article by dr rizvi left me yawning. it is no different from the majority of editorials/articles in pakistani newspapers, that continue to blame india for obstructing peace in the region and conveniently forget to mention pakistan`s deplorable policies. though there are various points in the article that can be easily argued against, the one that left me amused was the mention of something along the lines of `kashmir having strong cultural, historical, etc links with pakistan`. the only common thing in kashmir and pakistan is the majority of muslims, and that too is not overwhelming. beyond that kashmir and pakistan have nothing in common.

the following article `conflict vs cooperation` is worth reading.

http://www.dawn.com/2000/01/05/fea.htm#2

Kafir Khan #124 #114

Just an anecdote: During school/college days, there was a commonly heard song sung for our national flag. It went something like this: Saffron is for sacrifice, white for the truth and green for our greenery or productiveness of our land, the wheel for progress, etc. Even so many years later, I thought no deeper about it. It is only in the last year or so, exposed to furious discussions about Partition, suddenly the penny dropped : what might those colors have originally meant. I now believe they mean what we want them to mean. So I am deeply grateful to my country for `lack of education` or choosing to keep in the dark or choosing the `right` desensitizing propaganda in this case.

The same holds good for all symbols, national or religious: ultimately they are as good or bad as what they are made to signify. I am happy that I no material for an equally bitter retaliatory answer when arguments like yours are made.

Sadhana

PS: I am willing to fight ignorance, however and can refer you to books on Hinduism in India for better understanding.

M. H. Askari is a seasoned Pakistani writer with a vision. I recommend every South Asian to read his thought-provoking piece (reproduced below) carefully. We need more people like him.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Dawn Internet Edition

Opinion, January 5, 2000

What after the hijack drama?

By M.H. Askari

THE end of the Indian Airlines plane flying from Kathmandu to New Delhi on December 23, which for more than a week had put the lives of about 160 persons on a razor`s edge, could not but have created a general sense of relief and this is how the foreign office spokesman in Islamabad viewed it.

It is also reassuring that Pakistan used the occasion to reiterate its condemnation of all forms of terror in unequivocal terms. This should have normally marked a new phase of mutual trust and respect in the relations between India and Pakistan. But that alas was not to be, and judging from reports from across the border, there does not seem to be much room for optimism either.

India`s foreign minister is convinced that the hijacking was carried out with the active collusion of Pakistan and has even spoken of some retributive action against this country. Ironically, he has no hesitation in accepting at face value what he claimed he had been told by the Taliban information minister on this score, even though his government does not consider the Kabul authorities worthy of formal recognition.

He seems certain that the hijackers would find sanctuary in Pakistan. Mr Jaswant Singh does not trust Pakistan interior minister Lieut-Gen (retd) Moinuddin Haider`s public statement that under no circumstances would those responsible for the hijacking as well as those prisoners whose release was obtained by the hijackers be allowed to enter Pakistan.

It is a matter of deep regret that the hijacking should have become yet another contentious issue between India and Pakistan and an occasion for the two sides to trade accusations and recrimination between them. The Indian electronic media, in particular, which otherwise enjoy a substantial measure of independence from official control, were notable for the vituperative tone of their comments and the biased nature of their presentation of the different aspects of the hijack episode.

The Pakistan Television too did not act very responsibly or conformed to ethics and objectivity in relation to the commentaries and panel discussions that it broadcast while the hijacking drama was still going on. The humanitarian aspect of the situation was virtually lost sight of by both sides and the war of words that ensued has since acquired the nature of a raging storm straining relations between the two countries.

In the circumstances, the seminar which was held in the Karachi Press Club over the weekend to spell out the prerequisites of peace in the region should be regarded as a brave effort on the part of its sponsors.

The sorry spectacle of the media war did not dampen their interest in trying to bring about an improvement in subcontinental relations by injecting a measure of sanity and realism into them.

Dr Parvez Hoodbhoy of Islamabad`s Quaid-i-Azam University, who was one of the keynote speakers at the seminar, stressed the growing economic burden resulting from the present policy of confrontation adopted by Pakistan. He did not mince words while highlighting the hazards of a nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Some speakers at the Press Club seminar stressed the point that the culture of `hate India` which has developed over the years in Pakistan is the result of distortion of history in the textbooks in Pakistani schools and colleges. Several generations of Pakistanis have been brought up to believe India to be pathologically hostile to Pakistan and is not yet reconciled to its existence as an independent state. However, the electronic war during the hijacking crisis amply demonstrated that this notion was not confined to younger Pakistanis but that it was being deliberately maintained and promoted in the name of Pakistan ideology.

In the wake of the partition, a section of fanatical Hindus certainly believed that the vivisection of `mother India` was a great sin and that it should be undone at the earliest opportunity. However, it would be unfair to believe that the average Indian today subscribes to this view.

The resolution adopted by consensus at the Press Club seminar said that for both Pakistan and India progress and prosperity depended on ``moving away from the useless (state of) confrontation and in the direction of peace.`` In the situation in which the two countries are placed today, nuclear arsenals can by no means generate a sense of security; in fact, they could risk mutual destruction by unleashing a nuclear war either by accident or by miscalculation by one side or the other. In Kashmir, which is at the core of the tensions between India and Pakistan, the use of nuclear weapons is ``simply inconceivable.`` Well informed Indian strategists recognize this fact.

It is plain to see that the state of confrontation between Pakistan and India cannot go on for ever. Sooner or later, a way has to be found for the two countries to extricate themselves from the no-war, no-peace situation in which they are stuck today. Whether one or the other country should take the initiative in calling a halt to the deteriorating situation should not be turned into as a question of prestige. The nuclearization of the subcontinent is an alarming development and ways and means have to be found to contain its destructive potential.

India must recognize that while over the past fiftytwo years it has been able to develop a stronger infrastructure than Pakistan to cope with the implications of a nuclear conflict, it has done so at a considerable cost to its own social and economic sectors. Pakistan may be economically impoverished, but India cannot claim that it is doing much better either. It has still to go a long way before it can provide the basic minimum of food, shelter, health, education and employment for the large majority of its poverty-stricken people.

Pakistan needs to take a hard look at where it stands fiftytwo years after its independence. The number of children in Pakistan who will never be able to go to school runs into millions and, to make matters worse, tribal sardars, feudal lords and self-styled pirs manage to get away with the usurpation of buildings meant to house schools.

Countless people continue to be without access to clean drinking water. The country is dominated by a ruling elite which considers it a matter of pride not to repay bank loans running into billions, and to whom ethnic, feudal and sectarian bonds are immensely more important than their obligations as citizens of a civilized state.

All sane persons should lend their unstinted support to any move for peace between Pakistan and India. However, the failure of the various Track-II initiatives in the past decade should leave no one under any illusion that the next initiative is going be a resounding success. Yet efforts must continue to be made at various levels towards peace and normalization between the two countries.

umairr:

here`s another beauty from brig rashid quereshi, whose words you seem to trust.

Hijackers have gone to India: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Brigadier Rashid Quereshi, spokesman of Pakistan`s de facto ruler General Pervez Musharraf, has said India might have transferred the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to one of its planes from Kandahar after the hijackers surrendered. These hijackers, he said, did not enter Pakistan and if they tried to come into Pakistan they would be arrested and dealt with under Pakistani law. ``We have already stated earlier that if the hijackers enter Pakistan they will be arrested and punished but there are strong indications that the hijackers have entered India and it is likely they were sent to New Delhi in one of the Indian planes from Kandahar when the hijacking drama was over, Brig Quereshi added.

Bilal, Re post#136

Many thanks for posting that thought provoking article. I agree with it 100%

I am sick & tired of both sides trying to outdo each other by our petty prejudices. It is up to us educated subcontians to try and rise above our misunderstandings.Both countries are going down the same sewer by this policy of confrontation. Most moderate Indian & Pakstanis think alike. I truely believe we have the majority.

I dream one day India & Pakistan enjoy the same relations that US & Canadians enjoy. It is up to us to fight the scourge of fundamentalism in our respective societies.

Keep up the good work--very inspirational,

Regards

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jan/06ia.htm

All five hijackers have been identified

The Indian government Thursday announced

it had identified the five hijackers of IC 814,

all of them Pakistanis.

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.

The hijackers were Ibrahim Akhtar (from Bhawalpur),

Syed Akhtar Syed (Gulshaniqbal area, Karachi), Sumi

Ahmed Qari (defence area, Karachi), Mistry Zahoor

Ibrahim (Karachi) and Shaqir (Sakkar, Sindh).

Advani said the Bombay authorities had arrested four

activists of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen who had provided

a support base for the hijackers. With their arrest, the

government was in possession of irrefutable evidence

and documents that revealed ``Pakistan`s neck-deep

involvement in the dirty game of hijacking.``

The conspiracy to hijack the aircraft was hatched by the

four headed by Abdul Latif from Bombay, two months

back. The three others are Mohammed Rehan (Karachi),

Mohammad Iqbal (Multan) and Yusuf Nepali (Nepal).

Advani described it as a significant breakthrough in

showing Pakistan`s involvement in the incident. He said

Latif, who had been to one of the Gulf nations and was

trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, took principal

hijacker Ibrahim Akhtar from Bombay to Calcutta on

November one. From there they went to New Jalpaiguri

in West Bengal and then to Kathmandu.

Latif also accompanied another hijacker Shaqir to Nepal

on December one via Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Police achieved the breakthrough when they intercepted

a message to Latif from a Pakistani contact, directing

him to get in touch with a television correspondent and

give the information that if the hijackers` demand was

not met they would blow up the plane.

Sadhana #135

Re: Colours on Indian flag.

I remember reading somewhere that the colours of the Indian flag when it was designed originally in the 1920s or so was meant to represent the major religions in undivided India. That is, Saffron = Hindu, Green = Muslim, White = Christians. It did not have the wheel initially.

It was changed within a few years to be secular in nature. The colours were to represent various attributes: Saffron = sacrifice, white = purity, green = abundance/plenty and the wheel of Sarnath was added to the flag to represent I-forgot-what.

The Indian flag in its present form was first hoisted by Jawaharlal Nehru at Lahore in 1929.

Raj

The BBC said today that Maulana Masood was kept in prison in India for 6 years even though he was never convicted by an Indian court.

Well, then.

http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?section=opinion&pagename=story&storyid=1150210210747

Baltimore Sun

AIR travel is less safe after the hijacking of an Indian airliner on Christmas Eve succeeded. The hijackers attained a major demand and got away. Others will be tempted to do the same.

The peace of the world is less secure because, in the aftermath, two nations that have fought three wars and now have nuclear weapons are hurling accusations.

There is India accusing Pakistan of supporting terrorists in general and these in particular. There is Pakistan, claiming weakly that the hijacking was a put-up job by India to foment trouble.

Afghanistan, unrecognized by most of the world except Pakistan, played a responsible role in ending the trauma, then let the hijackers go free.

Two of three prisoners released by India to save 155 hostages have appeared in Pakistan. The five hijackers are rumored by sympathizers to be in Afghanistan, which says they went to Pakistan.

India`s patient negotiating saved lives, most of them Indian, after the murder of one left no doubt about the peril. The Indian Airlines pilot, Capt. Devi Sharan, was a cool-headed hero throughout the ordeal.

But in acceding to some of the terrorists` demands, India spurned the conventional wisdom that any concession validates terrorism. Until these terrorists are caught and prosecuted, the world will live with the consequence.

Having called Pakistan responsible, India with restraint is not taking unilateral action, as the United States did after the bombing of its embassies in East Africa.

Rather, India is urging the world community to isolate Pakistan as a rogue state for supporting terrorism, promising evidence while so far providing none.

Pakistan and Afghanistan support the secessionist goals of the insurrectionists in India-occupied Kashmir, while claiming not to aid the terrorism. They must make good on this disavowal with respect to these hijackers.

To protect the skies and seas for all peoples, the United States has returned hijackers to Cuba despite sympathizing with their political goals.

Until Pakistan and Afghanistan do the same, they stand, if not guilty, at least suspect.

Re: Layman #139

(``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.``)

Home Minister L K Advani failed to mention at the press conferene that the hostages were all wearing x-ray vision glasses, you know, the kinds that can see through ski masks.

I don`t know what`s funnier: the propoganda, or the fact that the Indian public eats it up without reasoning.

The Hand of Pakistan?

India arrests four charged with helping the Indian Airlines hijackers

By YISHANE LEE , TIME

India arrested two Pakistanis, a Nepali and an Indian on charges that they aided the Dec. 24 hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet in Kathmandu. According to the Times of India, Home Minister L.K. Advani declared that the arrests point to Islamabad`s ``neck-deep involvement`` in the eight-day hijacking, in which three jailed Muslim militants were exchanged for the plane`s 154 hostages.

New Delhi released details of the five hijackers` movements before they took over the jetliner, starting from as far back as Nov. 1, as well as photos of the five that were procured from the accomplices.

Indian papers splashed the photos across front pages. One hijacker, Ibrahim Athar, is the brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, the Muslim cleric who was released and who has since been in Pakistan calling

for a holy war against India. (See yesterday`s DB.)

The Hindu said Indian intelligence managed to track down the accomplices when the hijackers contacted the Indian accomplice Dec. 29, asking him to tell a TV correspondent in London that the plane would be blown up if their demands were not met.

Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) recruited Abdul Latif when he was working in the Gulf region and trained him in Afghanistan and Pakistan camps. The paper said the four accomplices were ISI agents and members of Harkat-ul Ansar (renamed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen after the U.S. declared it a terrorist organization).

Unlike the Hindu and the Times of India, the Asian Age included Islamabad`s reaction to the arrests. ``One suspects that there will be manipulation and fabrication of evidence,`` said Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf`s adviser Javed Jabbar. ``There was no involvement whatsoever of the government of Pakistan in any aspect of the incident. Absolutely not.``

The Asian Wall Street Journal`s lead news brief, along with The New York Times, said Pakistan accused India of fabricating the allegations to stem public anger over its bungling of the hijacking.

The NYT`s headline said, ``India presses claim that Pakistan backed hijacking.`` It noted that Advani, in making his case, ``glossed over`` the fact that Lahore airport initially would not allow the hijacked plane to land and only did so after the pilot ``nearly crashed it onto a road crowded with people.``

Advani had presented the hijackers` first demand that the plane be flown to the Pakistani city as evidence of Islamabad`s complicity.