Five years after Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 was hijacked in December 1999, the three men released by the Indian government to ensure the safety of the passengers continue to be sheltered in Pakistan despite repeated demands for their custody by Interpol, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). On December 24, 1999, five armed Pakistani nationals hijacked Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 from Katmandu to Kandahar, Afghanistan. Led by Sunny Ahmed Qazi, alias Burger, the hijackers slashed the throat of one of the 178 passengers, a honeymooner, and forced pilots to open the cockpit door. Burger demanded that the Indian government release three Pakistani terrorists from prison in exchange for the hostages aboard the aircraft. After an eight-day stand-off, New Delhi agreed to free the three militants as demanded by the hijackers, ostensibly to ensure the safety of the passengers and members of the crew who were held captive at Kandahar for eight days between December 24 and December 31. Among those released by India was Masood Azhar, a Pakistani national and secretary general of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, who was arrested on February 11, 1994 from Srinagar. The second released jihadi was an Indian national -- Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, chief of the Al-Umar Mujahideen militant outfit. The third was Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed, a British national of Pakistani origin who too belonged to Harkat-ul-Ansar and had masterminded the kidnapping of three Britons and an American during September-October 1994 in Jammu & Kashmir.
|