IC-814 hijack -- CBI names a gang of 11

IC-814 hijack -- CBI names a gang of 11
Ritu Sarin

New Delhi, June 20: Seven Pakistanis and four Indians are to be chargesheeted by the CBI later this week for the hijacking of Indian Airlines Boeing IC-814. The chargesheet will be filed in the designated court in Patiala before completion of the 90-day period after the first arrest in the case, which falls on June 22.

The Pakistanis include the five hijackers as well as Abdul Rauf and Yusuf Azhar, the brother and brother-in-law of Maulana Masood Azhar, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen leader whose release the hijackers obtained.

The CBI has already issued red-corner notices for the seven men and asked Pakistan to extradite them to India.

The Indians to be chargesheeted are Abdul Latif and Yusuf Nepali, the two conspirators arrested in Mumbai as well as the alleged main arms supplier, Dilip Kumar Bhujel, all three of whom are detained in Patiala. The fourth Indian, Chandra Pradhan, also an arms supplier, has been declared absconding and accused along with the seven Pakistanis.

The details of CBI's investigation that will be produced in court suggest that Masood Azhar's release was the motive for the hijack and that his rescuers were part of the same gang of militants who tried to get him released by digging an underground tunnel in the Jammu prison in June 1999. It was only after this bid failed that Latif and Nepali were asked to make logistical arrangements for the hijack.

The chargesheet is expected to claim a deep level of ``infiltration'' of Harkat cadres in Mumbai, Dhaka and Kathmandu. The three Indians have reportedly confessed to their ``role'' in the plot and the CBI says it has got ``corroborative evidence'' from hotels visited in Kathmandu, from cellular phone companies for the calls exchanged between the conspirators in India and from Maulana's family in Karachi and finally, from the passengers and crew of the hijacked aircraft.

Latif's confessional statement apparently provides the agency with what it thinks is clinching evidence. Latif is said to have admitted that while he first met Zakir, the brother of Harkat's top-ranking leader Farooq Kashmiri in 1994, he later met Kashmiri and Faizulla Rehman several times in Islamabad and Karachi. Latif was sent for arms training to Afghanistan and in April 1998, met Yusuf Azhar in Kathmandu where he learnt about how desperate the gang was to get their chief ideologue released from prison.

The confession reportedly reveals that both Abdul Rauf and Yusuf Azhar criss-crossed India and Nepal several times. In August 1998, Latif says, he met Sunny Ahmed Qazi, one of the hijackers, for the first time and was asked to arrange for a safehouse in Mumbai. In May 1999, a group left for Jammu to try arrange the escape of Maulana Masood and Sajjad Afghani, another jailed Harkat militant. The tunnel collapsed, Sajjani was killed and the two arrested members of the gang, Yusuf and Akhtar, escaped with the help of a hotelier.

It was only in July 1999 that the hijack plot took concrete shape and the conspirators held several secret meetings in Dhaka and Mumbai. In August, Ibrahim Attar (or Chief), the second brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, informed Abdul Latif about the plan and the forged passports and travel documents for the five hijackers were arranged.

Dilip Bhujel had already delivered the guns and grenades via the Kalingpong route. A crucial meeting between the gang took place in the Kathmandu Zoo on December 13, where Latif was told he would not be on the hijacked plane but should remain as the gang's point-man in Mumbai.

Thereafter, the hijackers moved to their base in Kathmandu but kept in touch with Abdul Latif, who, in turn, relayed the messages to Abdul Rauf in Karachi. On the fateful day too, the hijackers kept informing him when they cleared security for boarding IC-814 or when they were in the waiting lounge.

It was the call made by Abdul Rauf to Abdul Latif, asking him to call up the BBC offices in London and give details of the hijacking, which were intercepted by the Mumbai police and the sensational arrests made.