Lack of decision making and some mistakes… Where did India go wrong in the IC-814 hijacking case? The then RAW chief told

Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was hijacked by terrorists in 1999. There were a total of 179 people on board the plane, including five hijackers and 11 crew members. Anubhav Sinha has made a mini-series on this incident, which is streaming on Netflix. A controversy has erupted over the names of the terrorists in this series. Actually, the terrorists who hijackered the plane had Hindu code names. The same code names (Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar) have been kept in this web series as well. The controversy is about the fact that the makers have not mentioned anywhere what the real names of the terrorists were.

After the controversy escalated, the government summoned officials of Netflix India. Netflix has said that a disclaimer will be shown at the beginning of the series, which will mention the real names of the terrorists (Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Shahid Akhtar Syed, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim and Syed Shakir). After the release of this web series, a debate has also started regarding the handling of the situation by the then government and various security agencies. In a conversation with Aaj Tak, the then head of the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Amarjit Singh Dulat, admitted that many mistakes were made in decision-making then.

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All options ended as soon as the plane took off from Amritsar

Dulat said, ‘Once the plane landed in Amritsar, we had the opportunity to ensure that it did not leave Indian territory. But once the plane left Amritsar, we had no choice but to deal with the terrorists. We had made a good deal according to the circumstances. We had made mistakes in decision making and I have said this many times before, even when this incident happened that we had made a big mistake in Amritsar.’ He also said that if anyone else had been in place of Atal Bihari Vajpayee at that time, he would have looked weaker than him.

Also read: ‘If I had my way, I would have strangled Masood Azhar…’, the story of IC 814 hijacking in the words of the officer who took him from jail to the airport

Indian Airlines flight IC-814 took off from Kathmandu for Delhi on December 24, 1999. Five terrorists boarded the plane in Kathmandu and announced hijacking as soon as it entered Indian airspace. The plane landed in Amritsar for refuelling and stayed there for 50 minutes. Despite this, Indian security agencies, including the Punjab Police and the Central Intelligence Forces, failed to seize the opportunity. Dulat said, “We were all there and we should have taken a decision. I don’t want to name anyone; it is not fair after so many years. I am as guilty as anyone else.”

No one wanted to take a decision in the name of bloodshed

The former RAW chief also informed about his long conversation with the then Director General of Police (DGP) of Punjab Sarabjit Singh on the situation of hijack. He said, ‘I had a long conversation with the DGP of Punjab. He told me – I am not KPS Gill, I will not put my job in danger. The then DGP of Punjab said that the Chief Minister (Parkash Singh Badal) does not want bloodshed in Amritsar. Even Delhi was indicating the same. The DGP said that the plane could be attacked, but we did not know how many lives would be lost. No one wanted to take a decision in the name of bloodshed.’

Dulat said that it was necessary to convince the Punjab Police that the plane should not leave Amritsar, but this did not happen. Interestingly, DGP Sarabjit Singh had said on record that if he had received clear instructions from Delhi, he would have taken a decision. Regarding this, AS Dulat said, ‘I agree with him. But what he would have done at that time, I do not know. He was right when he said that he was waiting for instructions from Delhi, which never came.’

Also read: IC 814: The pilot of the hijacked plane told these two big mistakes in the show, these two things shown on the screen did not happen in real

ISI’s role in IC-814 hijacking

When asked about the role of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the hijacking, Amarjit Singh Dulat said that Pakistan’s intelligence agency was definitely involved in it. He said, ‘There is no doubt that ISI definitely had a role in the hijacking of IC-814. This has not come out from our reports, but there is also a report from a Pakistani journalist who was present in Kandahar. He told in his report that the role of ISI in this hijacking and how it controlled the entire operation can be clearly seen.’

The plane remained parked in Kandahar for 6 days

This plane remained a prison for the passengers and crew members for the next 6 days. At that time, there was a Taliban government in Afghanistan. In exchange for the release of the hostages, the Taliban demanded the release of 36 terrorists lodged in its jails, handing over the body of a terrorist Sajjad Afghani and a ransom of 200 million US dollars. Among the terrorists whose release the Taliban had demanded was Maulana Masood Azhar, who is the head of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Masood Azhar was lodged in Jammu jail since 1994. The second was Umar Sheikh, who was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail. The third was Mushtaq Zargar, who was accused of killing more than 40 Kashmiri Pandits.

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Also read: ISI gave a ‘gift’ to the hijackers of Indian Airlines plane in Lahore… Pistol wrapped in paper, passengers stranded for 36 hours

Passengers were released in exchange for these 3 terrorists

The deal between the Indian government and the Taliban was done on 28 December 1999. India had accepted the Taliban’s demand to release Maulana Masood Azhar, Umar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar. The then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh reached Kandahar with the three terrorists on 31 December. This was done so that if any decision had to be changed at the last moment, the officials would not have to turn to Delhi. Officials of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI reached Kandahar with the relatives of the three terrorists. They identified them. The vehicles already parked at the airport left with Masood Azhar, Umar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar. After this, passengers and crew members were taken off the plane one by one. Many of them were injured. But luckily everyone was alive.