Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an
Indian Airlines
Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...
Airbus A300
The Airbus A300 is a wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Airbus.
In September 1967, aircraft manufacturers in the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a large airliner.
West ...
en route from
Tribhuvan International Airport
Tribhuvan International Airport (Nepali language, Nepali: त्रिभुवन अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय विमानस्थल) (, colloquially referred to as TIA) is an international airport located in Kathmandu, B ...
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
, to
Indira Gandhi International Airport
Indira Gandhi International Airport is the primary international airport serving Delhi, the capital of India, and the National Capital Region (NCR). The airport, spread over an area of , is situated in Palam, Delhi, southwest of the New ...
in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, on Friday, 24 December 1999, when it was hijacked and flown to several locations before landing in
Kandahar
Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...
, Afghanistan.
The aircraft was piloted by 37-year-old Captain Devi Sharan and first officer Rajinder Kumar, with 58-year-old flight engineer Anil Kumar Jaggia. The Airbus was hijacked by five masked Pakistani militants of the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami ( ur, ; HUM) is a Pakistan-based Islamic jihad group operating primarily in Kashmir.IST. The hijackers ordered the aircraft to be flown to a series of locations: Amritsar,
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...
, and across the Persian Gulf to
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
. The hijackers finally forced the aircraft to land in
Kandahar
Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, which at the time was controlled by the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
. The hijackers released 27 of 176 passengers in Dubai but fatally stabbed one and wounded several others.
At that time, most of Afghanistan, including the Kandahar airport where the hijacked plane landed, was under Taliban control. Taliban militiamen fighters encircled the aircraft to prevent any Indian military intervention, which was found by current National Security Advisor
Ajit Doval
Ajit Kumar Doval KC (born 20 January 1945) is a bureaucrat & spymaster, serving as the fifth and current National Security Advisor (NSA) to the Prime Minister of India, with the precedence equivalent to Cabinet Minister. He previously served as ...
when he landed there. They also found two
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...
(Pakistan) officers were on the apron and others soon joined them; one was a lieutenant colonel and the other a major. Doval said that if the hijackers did not have ISI support, India could have resolved the crisis.
The motive for the hijacking was to secure the release of Islamist terrorists held in prison in India – fellow HuM members
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh ( ur, احمد عمر سعید شیخ; sometimes known as Umar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar,Note that this term is more commonly used in reference to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman Sheik Syed or by the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad;''CNN ...
and Masood Azhar, and a Kashmiri militant, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. The hostage crisis lasted for seven days and ended after India agreed to release the three terrorists. The three have since been implicated in other terrorist actions, such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, 2002 kidnapping and murder of
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' He was kidnapped and later decapitated by terrorists in Pakistan.'
Pearl was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and rais ...
2016 Pathankot attack
The 2016 Pathankot attack was a terrorist attack committed on 2 January 2016 by a heavily armed group of Islamic militants which attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force.
Four attacke ...
millennium attack plots
A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
in late December 1999 and early January 2000 by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.In 2022 One of the hijackers who hijacked the Air India plane name Zahoor Mistry was killed by bike-borne assailants in Karachi, Pakistan.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh ( ur, احمد عمر سعید شیخ; sometimes known as Umar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar,Note that this term is more commonly used in reference to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman Sheik Syed or by the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad;''CNN ...
, who was captured during the act and was released with Azhar during this hijacking and went on to join the HuM splinter group
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed ( ur, , literally "The Army of Muhammad", abbreviated as JeM) is a Pakistan-based: "The JEM is a Pakistan-based, militant Islamic group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in March 2000."
Deobandi: "Deobandis like Masood Azha ...
founded by Azhar in 2000; 1995 kidnapping of Western tourists in Kashmir by Al-Faran (pesudonym of HuM) where most abductees were killed with one beheaded.Amjad Farooqi who was involved in the 1995 kidnapping was also one of the perpetrators of this hijacking under the alias "Mansur Hasnain".
In 1999,
Sajjad Afghani
Muhammad Sajjad Khan was a Pakistani militant and Commander-in-Chief of Harkat ul-Ansar. He was known as Sajjad Afghani, due to his participation in the Soviet-Afghan War.
Early life
He was born in the village of Baibakh, Rawalakot, in the ...
, the founder of HuM who had been arrested with Azhar, was killed during a jailbreak which directly led to this hijacking and whose body was one of the hijackers initial demands.Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had provided organisational support for the kidnapping in order to have their associate Azhar released.
The identities of the five hijackers have been determined to be Ibrahim Akhtar (from
Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur () is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. With inhabitants as of 2017, it is Pakistan's 11th most populous city.
Founded in 1748, Bahawalpur was the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur, ruled by the Abbasi fa ...
), Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry (all three from
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...
) and Shakir (from
Sukkur
Sukkur (; ) is a city in the Pakistani province of Sindh along the western bank of the Indus River, directly across from the historic city of Rohri. Sukkur is the third largest city in Sindh after Karachi and Hyderabad, and 14th largest city ...
). They had arrived in Nepal, HuM's contact-hub for attacks in India, and boarded the plane from
Kathmandu Airport
Tribhuvan International Airport (Nepali: त्रिभुवन अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय विमानस्थल) (, colloquially referred to as TIA) is an international airport located in Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal. It ...
.
Hijacking
On 24 December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 took off from
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...
, India as its intended destination. The flight left with 180 persons on board, including both the crew and the passengers. One of the passengers on board was Roberto Giori, the then-owner of De La RueGiori, a company which controlled the majority of the world's currency-printing business at the time.
Shortly after the flight left Kathmandu, senior steward Anil Sharma was accosted by a man wearing a ski mask, who told him that the plane was being hijacked and that he was carrying a bomb. The hijackers instructed Captain Devi Sharan to, "fly west", and accordingly the flight entered Pakistani air space, but was refused permission to land in Lahore, Pakistan, by Pakistani Air Traffic Control. On being told that there was insufficient fuel to go further, the hijackers allowed Captain Sharan to land the flight in Amritsar, Punjab, to refuel.
Subsequent intelligence reports indicated that the hijackers had purchased five tickets on the flight in Kathmandu; two first class tickets were bought directly, while three economy seats were bought through a travel agency. Indian intelligence officials believed that
Dawood Ibrahim
Dawood Ibrahim (; born 26 December 1955) is an Indian mafia gangster, drug kingpin, and wanted terrorist from Dongri, Mumbai. He reportedly heads the Indian organised crime syndicate D-Company, which he founded in Mumbai in the 1970s. Ibrahim ...
, an Indian gangster/globally wanted terrorist (hiding in Islamabad, Pakistan), had provided assistance in giving the hijackers access to the airport in Kathmandu.
Passenger accounts later stated that the hijackers ordered the crew to take away the lunch that had been served, and separated the men from the women and children, blindfolding them and threatening them with explosives if they did not co-operate.
Landing in Amritsar, India
Air Traffic Control (ATC) in India first received news of the hijacking at 4:40 pm. The Crisis Management Group of the Indian Government, led by Union Secretary Prabhat Kumar, did not convene on receiving the news that the plane had been hijacked, and information concerning the hijacking was not communicated at that time to the Intelligence Bureau or the Research and Analysis Wing. The Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was briefed regarding the incident at 7:00 pm.
At 6:04 pm the Indian ATC made contact with flight IC 814, but had not received any orders on how to proceed. Captain Devi Sharan notified ATC that they were running low on fuel and had not been allowed to land in Lahore by Pakistani ATC. Sharan continued to make contact with ATC, requesting them to reach out to Pakistan and obtain permission to land, as the hijackers did not want to land in India and had already threatened to execute 10 hostages if their demands were not met. At 6:30 pm, the Indian High Commission in Pakistan requested permission for the plane to land there, but was denied.
At 6:44 pm, flight IC 814 began descent over the nearest airport in Amritsar, following a message from Captain Sharan, and was approached by local officials. The Director-General of Police for the state of Punjab, Sarabjeet Singh, later stated that he only received information regarding the hijacking when he saw it on television at 6 pm that evening. The
Union Government
The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
's
Home Minister
The Minister of Home Affairs (or simply, the Home Minister, short-form HM) is the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most officers in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Home Minist ...
,
L.K. Advani
Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...
, also stated later that he was informed about the incident via the news, and not by the Crisis Management Group, which had convened since then. Although he had recently stepped down as Inspector-General of Police in the area, J.P. Birdi met up with the plane, since his successor, Bakshi Ram, was on leave when the incident occurred.
On landing, IC 814 requested immediate refuelling for the aircraft. Captain Sharan later stated that he had hoped that with the assistance of Indian government, the hijacking would be prevented and that the plane would not have to take off again from Amritsar. In accordance with hijacking contingency plans prepared by the Crisis Management Group, a local committee consisting of the District Collector, the senior-most police and intelligence officials, and the airport manager had been created; they were instructed to delay the refuelling of the plane for as long as possible. These orders had been received by the committee from the Central Government at 6:40 pm, however, a phone call received with contradictory orders delayed initial response. This phone call was later established to have been an attempted hoax. A note sent to the local committee advised them to ensure the delay by any possible means, including deflating the aircraft tires if necessary.
Between landing and take-off again at 7:50 pm, Captain Sharan made contact with the ATC four times, informing them that the hijackers were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and had begun killing hostages, and requested them to refuel the plane as fast as possible to prevent any additional deaths. The hijackers had refused to communicate with local police officials while the plane was in Amritsar. Later accounts indicated that the hijackers, who were upset by the delay in refuelling, attacked Satnam Singh, a German citizen on board the plane, with a knife, causing him several wounds to the neck.
At 7:45 pm, local Punjab Police Commandos were placed on standby and ordered by the Crisis Management Group to accompany the fuel-reloading vehicles towards the plane, with the intention of deflating the plane tires in order to immobilize the plane. A fuel tanker was sent to block the aircraft's path but was ordered by the ATC to slow down as the driver was approaching the plane at a high speed. On receiving this order, the tanker came to an abrupt halt. Later, it was revealed that this approach caused the hijackers to suspect that the refuelling process would prevent their departure, and they ordered Captain Sharan to take off immediately, resulting in the plane narrowly avoiding hitting the fuel tanker on the runway. Five passengers had been placed in seats towards the front with their hands bound, and the hijackers threatened that these hostages would be executed if the plane did not take off immediately. The plane left Amritsar at 7:49 pm, and Captain Sharan announced the departure to the ATC, stating, "We are all dying." Commandos from the Indian special forces unit, the
National Security Guard
The National Security Guard (NSG), commonly known as Black Cats, is a counter-terrorism unit of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was founded on 16 October 1984, following Operation Blue Star, for combating terrorist activities and ...
, arrived at the airport just as IC 814 departed.
Later, it was revealed that there were efforts by ex-RAW chief A. S. Dulat and others to cover up the real motives of why the plane was not immobilised and why there were no commando-operation to neutralise the threat. The RAW officer named Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar, husband of Sonia Tomar, was boarded on the plane, who was a brother-in-law of
N. K. Singh
Nand Kishore Singh is an Indian politician, economist and former Indian Administrative Service officer. He is a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since March 2014 after having served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha ...
, secretary to then Prime MinisterAtal Bihari Vajpayee and he ensured that the plane would be let off and no commando operation would be carried out to ensure his brother-in-law's safety. According to RAW officer, R. K. Yadav, author of Mission RAW, days before the hijacking, U. V. Singh, another RAW operative in Kathmandu informed Tomar that Pakistani terrorists were planning to hijack an Indian plane and he ordered Singh to check the veracity of his report where Singh vouched for its reliability but Tomar rebuked him and told him not to spread rumours. Later, Tomar was found on the same plane which was hijacked and became the cause of failure of the operation. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was kept in the dark until around 7:00 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since the hijacking of IC 814 and he came to know about the hijacking only after disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area.
Landing in Lahore, Pakistan
On approaching Lahore, Pakistan, Flight IC 814 requested permission to land and was denied by Pakistani ATC, which turned off all lights and navigational aids at the airport to prevent a landing. As the plane had not been refuelled in Amritsar, and was running out of fuel, Captain Sharan attempted to crash-land without navigational aids and lights, nearly landing on a highway. Following this, Pakistani ATC turned on navigational aids and allowed the plane to land in Lahore at 8:07 pm.
India had, on receiving the information that the plane had landed in Lahore in Pakistan, sought a helicopter to transport the Indian High Commissioner, G. Parthasarthy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to Lahore airport, and had requested Pakistani authorities to ensure that the plane did not leave Lahore. Pakistani forces turned off runway lights again to prevent the plane from departing after it had been refuelled, and surrounded the plane with special forces commandos. They also attempted to negotiate with the hijackers to release women and children aboard the flight, but were denied. The Indian High Commissioner, G. Parthasarthy, was provided with a helicopter but only arrived in Lahore after Flight IC 814 had been refuelled and allowed to leave. Indian Foreign Office officials reached out for confirmation of reports that passengers on board had been killed, but did not receive a response from Pakistani authorities regarding this.
Landing in Dubai, UAE
Upon departure from Lahore, the flight was prevented from landing in
Oman
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...
; the hijackers instead settled for neighboring
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
,
UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
(about 1,250 miles distance from Lahore). After
Dubai International Airport
Dubai International Airport ( ar, مطار دبي الدولي) is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic. It is also the nineteenth-busies ...
denied permission to land, permission was granted instead at
Al Minhad Air Base
Al Minhad Air Base ( ar, قاعدة المنهاد الجوية, , also just Minhad Air Base) is a military installation in the United Arab Emirates. The base is located approximately south of Dubai and is operated by the United Arab Emirates Air ...
. The hijackers released 27 passengers, including a critically injured 25-year-old male hostage, Rupin Katyal, who had been stabbed by the hijackers multiple times. Rupin had died before the aircraft landed in Al Minhad Air Base. Indian authorities wanted Indian commandos trained in hijack rescue to assault the aircraft but the UAE government refused permission.
Landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan
After the aircraft landed in
Kandahar
Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...
, Taliban authorities offered to mediate between India and the hijackers, which India believed initially. Since India did not recognise the Taliban regime, it dispatched an official from its High Commission in
Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...
to Kandahar. India's lack of previous contact with the Taliban regime complicated the negotiating process.
However, the intention of the Taliban was under doubt after its armed fighters surrounded the aircraft. The Taliban maintained that the forces were deployed in an attempt to dissuade the hijackers from killing or injuring the hostages but some analysts believe it was done to prevent an Indian military operation against the hijackers.IB chief Ajit Doval claimed that the hijackers were getting active ISI support in Kandahar and that the ISI had removed all the pressure the Indians were trying to put on the hijackers, meaning that their safe exit was guaranteed and they had no need to negotiate an escape route. Doval also mentioned that if the hijackers were not getting active ISI support in Kandahar then India could have resolved the hijacking.
While in Kandahar, the plane's engine remained continuously on to protect everyone from the bitterly cold winter nights of Afghanistan.
Negotiations
On December 25 and 26, India discussed their approach to negotiations internally, while passengers on board Flight IC 814 awaited a decision. Passengers later stated that they received irregular meals and had limited access to drinking water and sanitation facilities, and that the hijackers utilised the public announcement system on board the plane to proselytize to the passengers.
On December 25, Indian Airlines provided a special relief plane, which flew back 27 passengers who had been released, as well as the body of Rupin Katyal, who had been killed while the plane was in Dubai, and Satnam Singh, who had been attacked by the hijackers in Amritsar and had suffered knife wounds to the neck.
Home Minister
The Minister of Home Affairs (or simply, the Home Minister, short-form HM) is the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most officers in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Home Minist ...
L. K. Advani
Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...
had opposed exchanging the hostages for release of the hijackers, as this would affect public opinion of the government, while External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh
Major Jaswant Singh (; 3 January 193827 September 2020) was an officer of the Indian Army and an Indian Cabinet Minister. He was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and was one of India's longest serving parliamen ...
advocated negotiation with the Taliban. On December 27, the Indian government sent a team of negotiators headed by Vivek Katju, Joint-Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, along with Home Ministry official Ajit Doval and S.D. Sahay from the Cabinet Secretariat.
Negotiations did not progress, as Taliban officials initially refused to allow Indian special forces to attempt a covert operation, and declined to allow their own special forces to do so as well. To prevent any military action, Taliban officials surrounded the aircraft with tanks, and on December 27, a Taliban official speaking to a local newspaper stated that the hijackers should either leave Afghanistan or put down their weapons. Indian officials interpreted this statement as an understanding that Taliban officials would arrest the hijackers if they surrendered, and began to negotiate with them concerning their demands. These demands included the release of 36 prisoners, the body of HuM founder
Sajjad Afghani
Muhammad Sajjad Khan was a Pakistani militant and Commander-in-Chief of Harkat ul-Ansar. He was known as Sajjad Afghani, due to his participation in the Soviet-Afghan War.
Early life
He was born in the village of Baibakh, Rawalakot, in the ...
and , but was ultimately reduced during negotiations to three prisoners:
*
Maulana Masood Azhar
Mohammad Masood Azhar Alvi is a radical Islamist and terrorist, being the founder and leader of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed, active mainly in the Pakistani-administered portion of the Kashmir region. His actions ...
CRPF
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a federal police organisation in India under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs (India), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of the Government of India. It is one among the Central Armed Police F ...
personnel.
*
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh ( ur, احمد عمر سعید شیخ; sometimes known as Umar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar,Note that this term is more commonly used in reference to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman Sheik Syed or by the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad;''CNN ...
– who was arrested in 2002 by Pakistani authorities for the abduction and murder of
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' He was kidnapped and later decapitated by terrorists in Pakistan.'
Pearl was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and rais ...
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' He was kidnapped and later decapitated by terrorists in Pakistan.'
Pearl was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and rais ...
and also allegedly played a significant role in planning the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
in the United States.
* Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar – who has played an active role since release in training Islamic militants in Pakistan administrated Jammu & Kashmir.
On December 30, Research and Analysis Wing Chief A.S. Dulat communicated with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, to convince him to release two prisoners as demanded by the hijacker. These prisoners were currently being held in Kashmiri jails. Abdullah was opposed to releasing the prisoners, warning Dulat of the long-term consequences, but eventually agreed to the demands of the Indian government. Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar was released from a Srinagar prison and flown with Sheikh and Azhar to Kandahar.
By this time, the hostages had been allowed to deboard the plane by the hijackers, and the hijackers had also surrendered their weapons. Passenger accounts indicated that the hijackers asked the passengers to show their gratitude to the Afghanistan government, following which money was collected and handed to one of the passengers, Anuj Sharma, who was instructed to use it to commission a memento of the hijacking for a museum in Kandahar.
However, instead of arresting the hijackers and the three prisoners who had been handed over to them, Taliban authorities drove them to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, to
Quetta
Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه) is the tenth most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in south-west of the country close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is the capital of ...
in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban had given the hijackers ten hours to leave Afghanistan. The five hijackers departed with a Taliban hostage to ensure their safe passage and were reported to have left Afghanistan.
Aftermath
Returned to Indian Airlines in January 2000, the nearly 20-year-old Airbus aircraft was "retired" from flying (pulled out of flying operations) in early 2001, and remained at the Indian Airlines engineering base in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. Bought by Airbus in May 2002, the aircraft was then stored at
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is an international airport serving Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). It is the second busiest airport in the country in terms of total and international passenger traffic af ...
in March 2003. Three and a half years after the hijacking, the hijacked aircraft was later sold as scrap by Indian Airlines in May 2003, subsequently being broken up and scrapped in Mumbai in December 2003. The hull is believed to have fetched 22 lakh. The scrapping was handled via Metal Scrap Trading Corporation (MSTC).
Trial
The case was investigated by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which charged 10 people (out of whom seven, including the five hijackers, were still absconding and are in Pakistan). On February 5, 2008, a special anti-hijacking
Patiala House Court
Patiala House Courts Complex is one of the seven District Courts complexes located near India Gate in the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT of Delhi).
The main part is housed in the Patiala House, the former palace of the Maharaja of ...
sentenced all three accused, namely Abdul Latif, Yusuf Nepali, and Dilip Kumar Bhujel, to life imprisonment. They were charged with helping the hijackers in procuring fake passports and taking weapons on board. However, CBI moved
Punjab and Haryana High Court
Punjab and Haryana High Court is the common High Court for the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh based in Chandigarh, India. Sanctioned strength of Judges of this High Court is 85 consisting of 64 ...
demanding the death penalty (instead of life imprisonment) for Abdul Latif. The case came up for regular hearing in high court in September 2012, but the CBI's application was rejected. Also, Abdul Latif's application for parole was rejected in 2015. On 13 September 2012, the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested terror suspect Mehrajuddin Dand, who allegedly provided logistical support for the hijacking of IC-814 in 1999. He allegedly provided travel papers to the hijackers. The Punjab and Haryana High Court ultimately convicted two persons for the attack, sentencing them to life imprisonment. They appealed against this sentence to the Supreme Court of India.
On 10 July 2020, one of the accused, Abdul Latif Adam Momin, along with 18 other persons including an employee of the passport office, was acquitted by a Sessions Court in Mumbai of charges relating to the fabrication of passports in connection with the hijacking incident.
The ill-fated hijacked aircraft became the largest piece of evidence involved in the subsequent criminal investigation from the Punjab courts, where the hijack case was being heard, who deemed that the aircraft was vital for investigation. The detectives got fingerprints of the hijackers from it. A model of the plane, complete with seat numbers, was created to be produced in court and a court official was trained to assemble it, as it was unwieldy.
Political aftermath
The incident is seen as a failure of the
BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mo ...
Ajit Doval
Ajit Kumar Doval KC (born 20 January 1945) is a bureaucrat & spymaster, serving as the fifth and current National Security Advisor (NSA) to the Prime Minister of India, with the precedence equivalent to Cabinet Minister. He previously served as ...
said that India would have had a stronger negotiating hand if the aircraft had not been allowed to leave Indian territory. Doval, the IB chief, who led the four-member negotiating team to Kandahar, described the whole incident as a, "diplomatic failure," of the government in their inability to make the US and the UAE use their influence to help secure a quick release of the passengers.
External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh
Major Jaswant Singh (; 3 January 193827 September 2020) was an officer of the Indian Army and an Indian Cabinet Minister. He was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and was one of India's longest serving parliamen ...
also received criticism for praising the Taliban for their co-operation after the hostages had been returned.
Relatives of the passengers aboard Flight IC 814 also raised public protests at being denied information about the passengers' health and status, twice entering briefings and meetings of government officials by force, to demand information, and holding press conferences to criticize the government. A message from Kandahar ATC was circulated to the public, stating that the plane was being regularly cleaned, and that the passengers were being provided with food, water, and entertainment; this was later proven to be false, according to passenger accounts.
Support to Northern Alliance and US invasion of Afghanistan
India had started to conduct supply operations to Panjshir in Afghanistan. Arms, ammunition and aircraft were provided to the
Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...
. India also provided logistical support to Ahmad Shah Massoud. The leader of the Alliance had visited India on multiple occasions to fine-tune strategies to take on the Taliban. During the US invasion of Afghanistan, Indian government allowed its military facilities to be used for strikes against Afghanistan and provided intelligence information on training camps of Islamic militants in Afghanistan.
In popular culture
Captain Devi Sharan (Commander of IC814) recounted the events in a book titled ''Flight into Fear – A Captain's Story'' (2000). The book was written in collaboration with journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury. Flight engineer Anil K. Jaggia also wrote a book specifically depicting the events that unfolded during the hijacking ordeal titled ''IC 814 Hijacked! The Inside Story''. The book was written in collaboration with Saurabh Shukla. The
flight purser
A purser is the person on a ship principally responsible for the handling of money on board. On modern merchant ships, the purser is the officer responsible for all administration (including the ship's cargo and passenger manifests) and supply. ...
, Anil Sharma, has also written a detailed report of the hijack based on his experience in his book, ''IA's Terror Trail''.
Indian Airlines
Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...
, India's sole domestic airline up to 1993, was hijacked 16 times, from 1971 to 1999.
The 2003 Bollywood film '' Zameen'' is loosely based upon the IC 814 hijacking and also
Operation Entebbe
Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe Raid or Operation Thunderbolt, was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.
A week ear ...
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
-language action thriller film by Kunal Shivdasani based on the hijacking and stars
Shiney Ahuja
Shiney Ahuja (born 15 May 1973) is an Indian actor in Bollywood films. He won the Filmfare Best Male Debut Award for ''Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi'' in 2006 and then followed with several hit films like ''Gangster'', '' Woh Lamhe'', '' Life in a ...
,
Esha Deol
Esha Deol Takhtani (born 2 November 1981) is an Indian actress and model who predominantly appears in Hindi films. The daughter of actor-politicians Dharmendra and Hema Malini, Deol made her debut in '' Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe'' (2002), which ...
and
Ishitha Chauhan
Ishita Chauhan is an Indian actress and model. She debuted as a child in the Hindi film ''Aap Kaa Surroor'' in 2007. She also acted in '' Hijack'' (2008). She made her Bollywood debut in Anil Sharma's ''Genius as Nandini Chauhan'' opposite to ...
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
-language war film by
Major Ravi
Major A. K. Raveendran SM (born 13 June 1958) is a retired officer of the Indian Army and former National Security Guard commando. He was awarded the President's gallantry medal in 1991 and 1992 for his contributions in fighting terrorism in P ...
is based on the hijacking. The political situation is portrayed from an Indian perspective in the film. ''Payanam'' (), a 2011 Indian
action
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
by
Radha Mohan
Radha Mohan is an Indian film director of the South Indian film industry. He is known for his work in the films '' Mozhi'' (2007), '' Abhiyum Naanum'' (2008), '' Payanam'' (2011) and ''Kaatrin Mozhi'' (2018).
Career
Radha Mohan began work o ...
is also loosely based on Indian Airlines hijacking but takes place at the
Tirupati Airport
Tirupati Airport is a domestic airport serving Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. It is situated in Renigunta, a suburb of Tirupati. It is away from National Highway 71 (India), National Highway 71 (previously NH-205), from Tirupati and from Venkat ...
in
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
List of hijackings of Indian aeroplanes
This list of hijackings of Indian aeroplanes is a listing of hijackings or hijacking attempts which have occurred on Indian aircraft.
1970s
* 1971 January 30 : An Indian Airlines plane on its way from Srinagar to Jammu was hijacked by Hashim Quere ...
1971 Indian Airlines hijacking
On 30 January 1971, an Indian Airlines domestic Fokker F27, also named "Ganga", flying from Srinagar Airport to the Jammu-Satwari Airport, was hijacked by two Kashmiri separatists belonging to the National Liberation Front (NLF, the antecede ...
*
1973 Nepal plane hijack
The 1973 Nepal plane hijack (also known as the Biratnagar Plane Hijack) was the first plane hijacking in the history of Nepal. Girija Prasad Koirala planned the hijack to steal money that the Nepal Rastra Bank was having transported from Biratna ...
Air France Flight 8969
Air France Flight 8969 was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers. The terrorists murdered three passengers and their intention was either t ...
*
Avianca Flight 9463
Avianca Flight 9463 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Bucaramanga to Bogotá in Colombia. On April 12, 1999, a Fokker 50 operating the route was hijacked by a command of six guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN). The air ...
*
Air India Flight 182
Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Montreal–London–Delhi–Bombay route. On 23 June 1985, it was operated using Boeing 747-237B registered ''VT-EFO''. It disintegrated in mid-air en route from Montreal to Lond ...
*
Dawson's Field hijackings
In September 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound for New York City and one for London. Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa ...
814
__NOTOC__
Year 814 ( DCCCXIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* April 13 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: Over the winter Krum, rul ...