4 accomplices held, five hijackers identified

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 6. Four key accomplices of the Pakistani hijackers involved in the hijack of the Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 have been arrested in Mumbai, the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani said here today.

After the hijacking episode, the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, had suggested that all the footprints in the hijack lead towards Pakistan. Today, Mr. Advani sought to piece together the story of the hijack plot as it had begun taking shape right from November 1, 1999 in Mumbai and Kathmandu.

Announcing the arrest of four Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives in Mumbai at a crowded press conference, the Home Minister said the vital breakthrough came when the hijackers, through one of their associates in Pakistan, contacted their Mumbai associate and asked him to tell a TV correspondent in London to put out the news on the international channel that the plane would be blown up if the demands of the hijackers were not conceded.

``This conversation took place on the night of December 29. The cue was taken and the four were rounded up,'' the Home Minister disclosed.

The four picked up by the Central intelligence agencies and the Mumbai police have been identified as: Mohammed Rehan, Mohammed Iqbal, both Pakistanis, Yusuf Nepali, a Nepalese and Abdul Latif, an Indian from Mumbai. Latif was recruited by the ISI while he was in the Gulf region. He later underwent intensive training in two camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

All the four operatives had told their interrogators that the hijacking of Flight IC-814 was an ISI operation executed with the assistance of Harkat-ul Ansar. The four were Mumbai- based associates of the hijackers and Abdul Latif had made several trips to Kathmandu over the past two months.

The four were activists of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, a fundamentalist outfit based in Rawalpindi, which after being declared a ``terrorist organisation'' by the U.S. in 1997, rechristened itself as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.

Proof of Pak. hand

Mr. Advani also released the photographs of the five hijackers and identified them as (1) Ibrahim Athar, (2) Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, (3) Sunny Ahmed Qazi, (4) Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and (5) Shakir. He said all the five hijackers were Pakistanis.

To the passengers of the plane, they were known as (1) Chief (2) Doctor (3) Burger (4) Bhola and (5) Shankar - the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another. Mr. Advani said that photographs of the hijackers - who were wearing masks most of the time - had also been shown to the passengers and the crew members who had been able to identify them. It is also learnt that the hijackers were carrying two AK- 47 rifles, seven pistols, 11 grenades, 25 kg of explosives and Rs. 2.5 lakhs in cash.

Offering substantial evidence of Pakistan's complicity in the hijacking, Mr. Advani released copies of two crucial pieces of communication where the Pakistani Government had requested the release of Masood Azhar. While the first letter of June 19, 1996 by Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Nasirullah Khan Babar, Interior Minister, to the then Indian High Commissioner, Mr. Satish Chandra, in Islamabad requested the release of Azhar on humanitarian grounds, the second letter of December 15, 1997 by the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi to the Ministry of External Affairs, urged consular access to Masood Azhar. The release of Azhar was also demanded by the hijackers, Mr. Advani said.

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