Why hijackers love Raja Sansi airport

Why hijackers love Raja Sansi airport
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

AMRITSAR, DECEMBER 25: The Raja Sansi airport which is being upgraded to international standards seems to be the preferred landing spot for hijacked aircraft in India. Being close to Lahore where landing permission for hijacked Indian planes had been refused in the past, the only option left with pilots and hijackers is to divert the plane to Raja Sansi.

The first hijacked Indian Airlines plane to land here was on September 29, 1981. Activists of the Dal Khalsa had then diverted the Srinagar-Delhi flight to Lahore. The flight was bound for Srinagar from New Delhi.

On March 27, 1993, a lone hijacker Hari Singh commandeered an Indian Airlines flight bound for New Delhi from Hyderabad to the Raja Sansi airport. Hari Singh surrendered before the then director general of Punjab Police (DGP) K P S Gill. On April 23, 1991, a lone Kashmiri militant hijacked a plane on the Delhi-Srinagar flight and this aircraft landed here after being denied landing permission by Lahore.

The militant was killed by National Security Guard (NSG) commandos and the passengers freed. After the April 1993 hijacking, a proposal was mooted by Gill for stationing a permanent anti-hijacking squad of the NSG here. Though the proposal was forwarded to the Union Home Ministry, nothing came of it.