Hijackers headed for Kashmir?

By Amit Baruah

ISLAMABAD, DEC. 31. As the terrorists-for-hostages deal was implemented without an apparent hitch this evening at the Kandahar airport, the hijackers of the Indian Airlines airbus, along with the released militants, were expected to ``go to Kashmir'' via Pakistan.

``They (the hijackers) claim to be Kashmiris. Let them go to Kashmir,'' Mullah Omar, Taliban Amir-ul-Momineen, was quoted as telling Mr. Rahimullah Yusufzai, Peshawar-based correspondent of The News.

Mr. Yusufzai told this correspondent that to Mullah Omar the route they took (which has to be via Pakistan) was irrelevant. ``We will throw the hijackers out tonight. They will have to cross the border,'' the Kandahar-based Taliban chief maintained.

Earlier, reports from Kandahar confirmed that soon after the Boeing 737 carrying the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, landed there, the three prisoners taken from Indian jails were whisked away in a Taliban vehicle. They were then taken to the hijacked aircraft, checked out by the hijackers and then driven to an unknown destination.

Clearly, if the hijackers, who have been allowed to go scot-free by the Taliban, along with the militants, cross the border into Pakistan, then they could go anywhere. Also, the fact that the Taliban has decided not to take any sort of action against the hijackers, who are responsible for the murder of Rippan Katyal, does not enhance the image of the militia. There is also a very real possibility that the hijackers could melt into the vast militant network that straddles both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the case of Maulana Masood Azhar, especially, it remains to be seen whether or not he surfaces in Pakistan.

In Kandahar, some of the passengers were reported to be trembling with fear after the hijackers climbed down from the aircraft. One teenage boy was seen sobbing even as doctors and medical staff entered the aircraft to help the passengers, who spent a full eight days as hostages.

`Humanitarian grounds'

Mullah Omar also made it clear that the Taliban's actions in ending the crisis were determined by ``humanitarian considerations'', not by any desire to secure international or Indian recognition. Asked if he expected relations with India to improve following such ``cooperation'', he maintained that it depended on India. Interestingly, the Taliban chief also asked nations not to depend on intelligence agencies, and if they did so, relations between them would not improve. He also said other countries should not depend on ``rumours'' as far as dealing with the Taliban was concerned. Other information made available to The Hindu suggests that the Taliban Shura (ruling council) that met on Wednesday night had set a deadline of Friday to end the hostage crisis. This deadline was presumably conveyed both to the Indian Government and the hijackers.

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