The Hijacking of IC – 814: Al Qaeda, Taliban and Pakistani Factors

Analysis

By Arbinda Acharya 

Brief Chronology

On 24 December 1999, five armed hijackers made pilot Captain Devi Sharan of the Indian Airlines flight IC- 814 from Kathmandu (Nepal) to New Delhi (India) to divert the plane and head for Lahore in Pakistan. There were 178 passengers aboard flight IC-814 and 11 crew members. Passengers included 150 Indian nationals, 4 Indian children, 8 Nepalese, 4 Swiss, 4 Spanish, 2 French, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Belgian, an Austrian, an Italian, and an American. The Lahore airport authorities refused to permit the aircraft to land, forcing it to head back to Amritsar, India. The plane landed at Amritsar where the hijackers demanded that the aircraft be refueled. The airport authorities sent over a tanker for refueling, but due to some problem, they sought that the plane be brought closer to the tank. After a 25-minute wait, during which a passenger, Rupin Katyal was killed, the hijackers made the aircraft take off and headed for Lahore, with just enough fuel for the trip. India persuaded the Pakistani authorities to permit the aircraft to land. The aircraft nearly crash-landed and was surrounded by Pakistani commandos. It was refueled and headed for Kabul. But because of the lack of night-landing facilities there, and later, at Kandahar, the plane was diverted towards Dubai and landed at the Al-Minhat Air Force Base. The hijackers demanded food, medicines, and a step ladder. The UAE officials agreed to negotiate if the women and children were allowed to disembark. The hijackers released 25 passengers and allowed the body of Rupin Katyal to be released to the UAE authorities.

On 25 December 1999, the flight took off from Dubai for Afghanistan and landed at the Kandahar airport at 0855 hrs.

The hijackers demanded the release of Mohammad Masood Azhar along with 35 other jailed terrorists and US $200 million and that the body of Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA) chief in Jammu & Kashmir Sajjad Afghani be exhumed and the coffin be handed over to them for the release of 154 hostages. Later they dropped their demands for a $200 million ransom and the exhumed remains.

On 31 December 1999, passengers were released after the Government of India released 3 terrorists - Masood Azhar, Sheikh Omar Saeed, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (chief commander of the Islamic rebel group Ul-Umar Mujahideen). The released prisoners and the hijackers under the protection of the Taliban, fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The Hijackers

A group calling itself ‘Islamic Salvation Front’ (ISF) claimed responsibility.

Later the Indian investigators identified the hijackers involved as:-

1. Ibrahim Athar (brother of Masood Azhar) , Bhawalpur Pakistan
2. Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshaniqbal area, Karachi, Pakistan
3. Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Karachi, Pakistan
4. Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim Karachi
5. Shakir Sakkar, Sindh Pakistan

Indian authorities claimed that all the hijackers were Pakistanis and all of them belonged to Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA) of which Massod Azhar was the General Secretary when he was arrested in India. While in the aircraft the hijackers used code names respectively as Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar.

On 29 December, the hijackers contacted one of their associates in Pakistan who in turn called a Mumbai (India) number. The accomplice in Mumbai was told to inform a television correspondent in London to put out the news that the plane would be blown up if the demands were not met. The call was intercepted, leading to the arrest in Mumbai of accomplice Abdul Latif (who received the call), Mohammed Rehan, Mohammed Iqbal (both Pakistanis), and Yusuf Nepali, a citizen of Nepal. Latif was the kingpin at the Indian end, having escorted ‘Chief’ Athar on 1 November 1999  from Mumbai to Calcutta by air, to New Jalpaiguri by train, and from there to Kathmandu (Nepal) by bus. Exactly a month later he took Shaqir (‘Shankar’) by train to Gorakhpur and further to Kathmandu by bus. Then on 17 December he flew to Kathmandu and returned later by train. The date of the hijacking originally planned for 27 December was advanced by three days.

From the data retrieved from the Computers of the Royal Nepal Airlines linked to the travel agents, the investigators found that on 13 December three passengers had bought their tickets together from Everest Travels and Tours, located near Nepal King Birendra’s palace for travel on 27 December. Two business class tickets were brought from the Gorkha Travel Agency on the same day. However, on the same day, the journey date for all 5 tickets was advanced to December 24. It was also found that none of the five had booked any luggage.

In April 2000, police in the Indian state of West Bengal arrested Noor Mian suspected of being part of an international gang having links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) having a role in the hijacking. The same month the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Kumar Bhugel from his hideout in Kalimpong in West Bengal. Bhugel reportedly supplied arms to the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 through Yusuf Nepali.

Though India accused that all the hijackers were Pakistanis and went back to Pakistan after they were released from the custody of the Taliban, Pakistan had vehemently refuted the charges. Reappearing in Karachi Massod Azhar gave an account of what happened after the vehicle carrying the hijackers, the three freed prisoners and a hostage from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia left Kandahar airport on December 31. “The hijackers said, ‘You don’t know us. We have never met. We are from India and respect and admire you, but we cannot take off our masks.” Azhar also said that all three including Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, and Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheikh, crossed together into Pakistan from Afghanistan. But the hijackers released the Taliban hostage -- taken to guarantee their safe passage out of the airport -- and said they were returning to India. Azhar asserted that the hijackers were Indian citizens from Kashmir.

 Al Qaeda Connection

There is no evidence to link Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden to the hijacking. Links can only be established based on personal acquaintances of the released militants with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the links of some of the arrested persons with Al Qaeda, and other bits and pieces of information which however have not been substantiated.

Before reappearing in Pakistan, two of the released prisoners Massod Azhar and Sheikh Omar Saeed reportedly spent time in Afghanistan and probably with Osama bin Laden.  It was not known whether the hijackers also went to this camp. Still, a New York Times report says that the US special forces and the CIA discovered four ticket stubs from the flight, two boarding passes, an Indian Airlines Airbus 300 safety procedure card, and a handwritten list of the plane’s passengers in a camp in Kabul. The camp also had notes on nuclear and biological weapons. This matter was taken up with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in December 2001, by the CBI team looking into the hijacking case. 

In November 2001, Indian police picked up Mohammed Afroz Abdul Razak, alias Afridi alias Pilot a resident of Trombay (near Mumbai) in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Afroz who was in India since 22 September 2001, was picked up from Hotel Abbot in Vashi, near Bombay on 2 October 2001.  The Mumbai police recovered an international roaming SIM card, an American credit card, and a passport with American, British, Australian, and Thai visas from his possession.

Afroz was officially arrested on 3 December 2001 after charges were brought against him. At a closed-door session of the court in Bombay, Afroz confessed that he was a member of the Al Qaeda network and part of an Al Qaeda plot to attack targets in the United Kingdom, Australia, and India simultaneously on 11 September 2001. The targets included the British parliament and the Tower Bridge - a major London landmark over the River Thames- in the UK, Rolta Tower in Australia, and the Indian Parliament. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Afroz was part of the Al Qaeda cell which had checked in at a London airport on 11 September for two flights bound for Manchester. They had planned to hijack the planes and crash them into the Houses of Parliament and London’s Tower Bridge. But when news of the attacks in America came through and security around the Airport tightened, they panicked and abandoned the plans.  However, the Indian part of the plan was not abandoned and Afroz was one of four groups tasked to carry out the strikes in November 2001. Afroz returned to India from Heathrow Airport and landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on September 12, a day after the terrorist attacks on the US.

Afroz was born into a poor tailor’s family and grew up in a poor district in northern Mumbai. He received secondary education at a state-run school. Afroz had initial pilot training in Mumbai in 1997 reportedly funded by a rich relative living in London. In subsequent years, Afroz received flying lessons in Australia, England, and the US. Indian investigators believe that Afroz’s family was too poor to pay for the more than $100,000 in fees needed for the classes. They believed that the cost of Afroz’s training in Melbourne was borne by the Student’s Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). SIMI a banned Indian group linked to many high-profile attacks in India is believed to be closely associated with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.  The cadres of SIMI consider bin Laden as a ‘true believer of Islam’ and look up to him as an epitome of an ‘Islamic Hero’. Investigators also traced the remittance of about a million Indian rupees (about US $ 20000) to Afroz’s account in Bombay from an ANZ Grindlays Bank account in New Delhi.

As per the reports of the investigation agencies, Afroz clocked 100 hours of flying in the southern city of Melbourne in Australia on single-engine twin-seat Cessna 152 and Piped Warrior 28 planes between August 1997 and 1998. He returned to Bombay in 1998. Afterwards, he went to a flying school in Tyler, Texas in US, where he clocked 10 hours of flying on small planes. Afroz returned to India in October 1999 and later went to Britain in August 2001 for a multi-engine training programme.   In the United Kingdom Afroz received training at a flight school in Bedfordshire. As per his admission, Mohammed Atta, the main protagonist of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, was one of those who trained with him in Australia. Afroz told his Indian interrogators that, two of the IC 814 hijackers trained with him in Australia and the United States before the 1999 hijack. The two IC 814 hijackers who trained with Afroz in Australia were Shahid Akhtar Sayeed alias Sandy and Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim alias Zia.

While in Australia, Afroz regularly met with Maulana Mansur Ilyas, the leader of the Verribia Islamic Centre in the Victoria State. Security agencies believe Ilyas to be  Al Qaeda’s regional leader in Australia.

After the confession of Mohammed Afroz was made public by a statement of the Indian Minister for Home Affairs in the Indian Parliament, Australia’s Attorney-General Daryl Williams confirmed that Afroz had indeed trained as a pilot in Australia. “We have been able to confirm that he did train in Australia as a pilot in 1997 and 1998 but we have also ascertained that he left Australia in December 1998 and has not returned. He has done pilot training apparently in Australia and in Britain so presumably the type of suicide attack he was contemplating was using aircraft.”  Australian Foreign Minister John Howard said that Australian officials had asked Indian agencies for authority to interview the man. As Howard claimed, “There may be no substance in this beyond the fact that he had flight training in Australia,” Around the same time Australia’s SBS Radio reported that Washington sent FBI investigators to the South Australian city of Adelaide following the 11 September 2001 attacks after being told seven Middle Eastern men had sought urgent pilot training there. Because the urgency of the request could not be met in Adelaide, the seven chose to train in the United States instead.

However, there was no confirmation about the same from the Australian authorities. There was also no information from the Australians about Afroz’s claim that Mohammed Atta or two hijackers of IC 814 ever trained in Australia.  Nevertheless, the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he did not think the man’s claims were a hoax. Even the Indian Minister for Home Affairs told the Parliament that “we have been able to confirm his statements and some other information he had revealed.  From what all this man has said, it seems his confessions carry some weight.”

Indian authorities followed up their investigation in Britain and the United States. After visiting Tyler, they said that Afroz was seen in the company of at least two of the men who crashed the planes into the World Trade Center. According to Mumbai’s then Commissioner of Police M N Singh, “he (Afroz) is part of a larger conspiracy of Al Qaeda.” The Commissioner asserted that Afroz had close links with militants involved in the Kandahar IC 814 hijacking and attacks in the US. After a trip from the US and UK in this connection, Singh said that “we have gathered corroborative evidence to prove that Afroz’s confession was true to a large extent.” Afroz had identified nine of the 19 photographs put out by the US police as those involved in the attack on the World Trade Centre. “Afroz had also confessed that he had met these people during the training sessions in Melbourne. Sandy, one of the prime accused in the case involving the hijacking of IC 814, “had also visited the group undergoing training in Melbourne as per Afroz’s confessions.”

Afroz claimed that he did not have the training to fly Boeing aircraft. In a media interview, he said “How can a single-engine pilot fly a Boeing?” However, Mumbai police were convinced that “basic pilot training on any aircraft is enough to take control of a bigger plane and the purpose is not to land it safely anyway.” Pradip Sawant, Mumbai’s deputy police commissioner told news agencies that “the aim is not to land ... but just bang.”

(Afroz was charged with section 120 B [conspiracy], section 121 A [waging war against nation], section 126 [acts of depredation against countries friendly with India], section 420 [cheating], section 467 [forgery] of the Indian Penal Code. Indian authorities had provided investigating teams from other countries access to question Afroz.

In February 2004, news agencies carried a report that a document purportedly from Al Qaeda had hailed the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by “Islamic Kashmiri” militants as a “successful operation” from which other fighters could learn lessons. An English translation of the document which appeared in a pro-Al Qaeda Arabic website, Al Palsam stated that “The hijackers were clearly able to  lend greater prominence to their cause,” and “the whole world began to deal with the Kashmir issue anew and according to a new perspective.” The document added that the Indian authorities were “afflicted with broken spiritedness, submissiveness and groveling as they carried out the demands of the Mujahidin [Islamic warriors] in front of the whole world.” It said the operation should be studied “in order to derive lessons and insights from which Mujahidin can benefit.”

One of the persons arrested in this connection, Abdul Latif reportedly underwent intensive training in camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan as per a statement given by the Indian Home Minister on 6 January 2000. A passenger in the hijacked plane had written how the hijackers were talking about the Muslims being killed in Chechnya and other places, a grievance that Al Qaeda used to galvanize the Mujahideen.

Pakistani Connection

From the beginning of the crisis, Indian authorities have pointed fingers at Pakistan, especially at the possible involvement of ISI in the hijacking. There was a report that the hijackers came to Kathmandu in a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight which landed just before the hijacked flight was to take off. A little while before the departure of IC-814 from Kathmandu, a Pakistan Embassy car (42 CD 14) arrived at the PIA aircraft, carrying Pakistani First Secretary Mohammed Arshad Cheema, his assistant Zia Ansari, and a Nepali Muslim, Abdul Rias Khan - one who was believed to have supplied a consignment of RDX to a group of Punjabi militants in Kathmandu some years back. One of the Pakistani officials handed over a briefcase to a hijacker. Five hijackers walked straight out from a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft into the Indian Airlines Airbus sitting on the tarmac.

However, this was refuted by the pilot of the Indian Airlines flight. Interrogation of those arrested also confirmed that the hijackers came to Nepal by other means.

Immediately after the hostage swap, a Taliban representative in the United States Hakim Abdul Mujahid said that the hijackers had already started their journey and were reportedly heading toward Pakistan. “They [the hijackers] have started their journey under the monitoring of our people [the Taliban]. Ultimately, their destination would be Pakistan. It is not exactly known where they are headed, but since no other country wants them, the only guess is that they are headed towards Pakistan.” Even the ICRC also refused to take charge of the hijackers. It is to be noted that after the hostage swap, the Taliban gave the hijackers 10 hours to leave Afghanistan.  

On 12 April 2001, Pakistani First Secretary Mohammed Arshad Cheema was arrested by Nepal police for possessing more than 16 kilograms of the high explosive RDX (A potent version of C-4). Cheema’s wife and two Nepalese nationals were also detained. On 14 April 2001, Cheema and his wife were expelled from Nepal.

In a statement in January 2000, the Indian Home Minister said that the interrogation of the four operatives had confirmed that the IA Hijack was an ISI operation executed with the assistance of Harkat-ul-Asar (HUA). For example, Abdul Latif was recruited by the ISI while he was in the Gulf Region. He later underwent intensive training in two camps one in Pakistan and the other in Afghanistan.

When the hijackers took control of the aircraft and announced that the plane had been hijacked their first directive to the Pilot was to proceed to Lahore.

At the first instance, ATC Lahore declined to permit the flight to land but when on its way back from Amritsar the chief hijacker spoke to ATC, Lahore urging that the plane had to be refueled, the ATC Lahore allowed it to land and provided it with fuel.

Out of the 36 prisoners whose release was demanded by the hijackers as many as 33 were Pakistanis, one was a UK national of Pakistani origin, and another was an Afghan. Only one was a Kashmiri Indian.

Pakistan was very much concerned about the arrest and incarceration of Maulana Masood Azhar by India. In June 1996, Major General (Retd.) Nasirullah Khan Babar, then Interior Minister of the Government of Pakistan, wrote to the High Commissioner of India in Islamabad seeking the release of Masood Azhar on “humanitarian grounds.” In December 1997, the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi sent a formal Note Verbale to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs claiming Masood Azhar to be a Pakistan national requesting Consular access.

From the transcripts of intercepted conversations made available by a friendly country to the Government of India, it appears that at every stage of the operation, the hijackers were in constant touch with the GHQ of the Pakistani Army in Rawalpindi. The hijackers possessed a very sophisticated satellite telephone to communicate with Rawalpindi. When the authorities in Kabul refused to allow the hijacked aircraft to land, the authorities in Rawalpindi, told the hijackers to proceed to Kandahar.

Later Indian authorities claimed that the hijackers of Flight IC-814 were in the care of Pakistan’s military intelligence after leaving Kandahar. This was based on a statement by the former Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lieutenant General (retd) Hameed Gul that the hijackers had gone from Kandahar to a territory held by his country.

Pakistan had repeatedly insisted that the hijackers were not in Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign minister said “I can tell you with full responsibility that the hijackers have not entered Pakistan. Under international (laws) dealing with hijacking, we will arrest them and put them before the court,” [if they enter Pakistan territory].

The Taliban Factor

Despite its professed religious rhetoric and barbaric acts and pro-Pakistan leanings, the Taliban came in for much praise for their handling of the crisis. Initially, India wanted the Taliban to agree to a storming operation, which the Taliban firmly refused. The Taliban however warned the hijackers that they would storm the aircraft if any of the hostages were hurt. The Taliban also urged the hijackers to free the two children aboard the flight, along with women and ailing passengers though without success. New Delhi was hesitant to deal with the Taliban initially. When the plane first landed at Kandahar, New Delhi routed its requests to the Taliban through countries that recognized the regime - presumably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Taliban intervened at India’s request to persuade the hijackers to drop two additional demands that had threatened to derail the negotiations. As reported, one of the hijackers informed the passengers that the Taliban chief (Amir – Mullah Omar), had ‘requested’ them to resume talks, and they could not refuse him, because they respected him a lot. The Indian Foreign Minister hailed the Taliban regime, for persuading the five hijackers to tone down their demands for the hostage release, a feat that kept the delicate negotiations on course. According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist and specialist on Afghanistan, “the Taliban somehow have come very well out of this despite their lack of sophistication or any diplomatic experience.”

Others

Intercepted communications between two senior militant commanders involved in the episode also revealed some coordination among other militant groups on this issue. For instance, in an intercept forwarded to the Indian Prime Minister’s office by the army on 26 December 1999, the Harkat-ul Ansar commander told his counterpart Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT) that no more passengers would be hurt, that all of them would be freed on December 31, and that the empty plane would be blown up on January 1.

Mohammad Afzal alias Shahid Akhtar leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (the group founded by Masood Azhar who India released in the hostage swap) squad involved in the December 2001 Indian Parliament attack was a part of the 1999 hijacking of IC 814 as reported by Delhi Police Commissioner. Mohammad was identified by the other arrested persons as “Burger,” one of the five hijackers.

In sum, the hijacking of IC 814 was much more complicated and complex than what meets the eye. It also highlights the bravery of the aircraft's crew, especially the aircraft's captain, by demonstrating calm postures that are required to save the lives of passengers and fellow crew memb

Refrences-

¹ Author: Arabinda Acharya; Visiting Professor, Centre for International Studies and Development, Jagiellonian University, Poland; Associate Professor and Senior Research Advisor Rabdan Academy Abu Dhabi, UAE; Associate Professor, National Defense University, USA & International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University Singapore. Upcoming Book – A Caliphate in South Asia? London and Singapore; World Scientific Europe. 

² This is part of a report prepared by the author in 2006 after a chance meeting in Singapore with Captain Devi Sharan of the hijacked flight IC 814.

³ Captain Sharan continued to fly for AI and was involved in similar complex and risky operations like “Operation Safe Homecoming” in February  2011 to evacuate Indian citizens fleeing the Libyan civil war.

Disclaimer: This paper is the author’s individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organisation’s viewpoint.

The study of this paper was conducted at the request of Professor Rohan Gunaratna. He is a professor of Security Studies at Nanyang Technology University, Singapore, Honoray Chairman and author of 16 books.