Periscope on Pakistan

Periscope on Pakistan

Hijack has `unhinged' Indian mind
DAWN: The December 24 hijack of an Indian Airlines plane during a Kathmandu-New Delhi flight, has virtually unhinged the Indian mind. The official statement that the hijackers had come from a Pakistan International Airlines flight that had landed earlier in Kathmandu was given the lie by a Nepalese official statement.

Indian intellectuals who came on ZEE TV's news channel reinforced the Doordarshan version that the hijackers had been sent from Pakistan and that the Inter-Services Intelligence was involved in the affair. Pakistan's official response, as articulated by foreign minister Abdul Sattar, was measured, allowing New Delhi to correct its attitude.

It is in the nature of commercial, privately-owned TV channels to compete with other channels and to reflect the public opinion in parallel to the official version and the views put out by `intellectuals' mostly working for state institutions.

The gaffe that Pakistani commentators on PTV had pointed outfinally came home to roost: why was India unable to stop the hijacked plane from taking off from Amritsar. ZEE TV was forced to take account of the criticism of the policy adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party government after the hijack. It brought two persons to the table on December 27 who were convinced that the Bharatiya Janata Party had a political agenda which overrode the normal routine of tackling the hijackers... The Indian hysteria as it appeared in the early stages of the incident on private channels, however, must be understood.

The new public attitude has been formed by the Kargil Operation which jolted the Indian public into realising that the Indian army could be successfully challenged by Pakistan. Pakistan's internal conditions were interpreted as a chaos in which terrorist militias killed foreigners (Iranians, Americans), massacred their sectarian rivals, carried out acts of terrorism in the United States (Ramzi Yusuf, Aimal Kansi) and even put the Prime Ministers under challenge.According to the press in Pakistan, Maulana Masood Azhar, whose release from an Indian prison is demanded by the hijackers, was a Pakistani-born British national once based in Karachi. He founded Harkat al-Ansar, an organisation declared terrorist by the United States. His imprisonment in India was successfully challenged at the Indian Supreme Court, but Pakistan refused to accept him as a Pakistani citizen after his release on bail. He was recaptured. His connections in Pakistan and Afghanistan among the jehadi militias remain intact.