Alliance Air plane hijacked

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, OCT. 3. An Alliance Air plane, on flight from Mumbai to Delhi, was hijacked late tonight. There are 46 passengers and six crew members aboard. The plane has landed at the Indira Gandhi Airport and has been allowed to park itself in the isolation bay No. 27. The National Security Guard commandos have surrounded the plane, and were expected to storm the aircraft if the negotiations fail.

There are believed to be two hijackers aboard, and preliminary reports indicate that the hijackers want the plane to be flown to Lucknow. The hijackers had asked for two engineers.

The plane was hijacked sometime after it left the Ahmedabad airspace. According to the Civil Aviation Minister, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, the Civil Aviation authorities had received a telephone call that the plane had been hijacked.

The crisis management team was already in session, and the instruction from the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, is that there should no ``Amritsar'', meaning that the plane would not be allowed to leave the Delhi airport under any circumstances.

Advani chairs meeting

A high-level meeting chaired by the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, has begun at the Civil Aviation Ministry headquarters at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan here.

PTI, UNI report:

A distress call had been received by the Air Traffic Control in New Delhi where the plane had landed at around 1 a.m., the Minister said. He confirmed that soon after the flight had taken off from Mumbai, an anonymous call was received that the flight was going to be hijacked. A little later, the pilot radioed to the ATC about the hijack.

There are 52 persons on board, including 6 crew members. They are reportedly safe. A crisis management team has started functioning at the airport.

Airport authorities said they had reports that the aircraft had been hijacked on the way from Mumbai to New Delhi. ``An Alliance plane from Mumbai to New Delhi has been hijacked,'' Mr. Brijender Shekhar, an official at the ATC at the Delhi airport, said.

The plane is now parked at an isolated bay on runway 27. Police and fire vehicles have rushed towards the site. The pilots have reportedly asked that two engineers come on board. Initial reports said there were at least two hijackers in the passenger area.

The motive of the hijackers and their identity are not clear. According to Star News, they do not speak very good English. The cockpit has been sealed off and the pilots have reportedly locked themselves up.

The commandos of the National Security Guards, the fire brigade and ambulance services have surrounded the plane and the authorities have opened a communications link with the hijackers. The plane has fuel enough to fly for about 90 minutes. It has been immobilised, officials said. Alliance Air is a subsidiary of the Indian Airlines.

The Delhi Police Commissioner, Mr. Ajai Raj Sharma, has reached the runway where the plane is parked. A bomb disposal squad of the Delhi police has also arrived at the scene.

Confusion at Mumbai

Confusion prevailed at the Mumbai airport following reports of the hijacking even as security was put on alert to meet any eventuality. The airport police said that security had been further tightened.

India has been on alert since the September 11 attacks in the United States, in which the hijackers seized jetliners and struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

- PTI, UNI

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