India steps up pressure on hijackers issue

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN.19. India today sought to intensify international pressure for the extradition of the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane, which was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

In an official letter to the President of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the Indian representative at the headquarters of this organisation, Mr. A.P Singh, cited the legal grounds on which the hijackers could be extradited. Mr. Singh pointed out to the relevant articles of the 1971 Montreal Convention and the Hague convention which could be invoked for the extradition of the hijackers of IC-814.

According to the note verbale, India is legally empowered to exercise jurisdiction over the hijackers as the hijacked plane was registered in India.

Pakistan, the note said, was legally obliged to take the hijackers into custody as there are ``strong grounds'' to believe that the desperadoes were Pakistani nationals. The ICAO is empowered to insist that Islamabad locate the offenders and take them and their accomplices into custody and extradite or prosecute them in accordance with Pakistani laws based on the two conventions.

India, according to a foreign office spokesman, has moved the ICAO to highlight the hijack episode worldwide and to facilitate the apprehension of the hijackers should they be outside Pakistani territory.

Passport agents held

PTI reports from Mumbai:

In a major development, city police yesterday arrested seven persons for issuing bogus driving licences and passports to the hijackers of the IC-814 and their associates, including Isi agents.

Police today said four of those arrested in the bogus

passport racket were Mahmood Sadai, Sultan Vani, Junaid Belam

and Dilip Navani, while those involved in issuing bogus driving licenses to the ISI agents have been identified as Mehboob

Khan, Ismail Chunnawala and Abdul Mulla. Police have also launched a manhunt for four of their absconding accomplices identified as Sheela Adhikari, Anjela Fernandez, Farookh Patel and Yusuf Patel.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Next     : CWC(I) meets to select candidates