IC-814: Pakistan Embassy officials at departure lounge, support cell in Mumbai - All about 5 hijackers and their ISI connection

Netflix's web series 'IC-814 -- The Kandahar Hijack' has upset a section of people, with some saying it is trying to re-write history. Kanchan Gupta, who was an OSD in the PMO to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the hijacking took place, said the codenames that were given to the hijackers have been intentionally used and their real names that have been in the public domain have not been referred to. "The purpose behind this is to communicate or suggest that they were not Muslims, they were just young men out on the lark, and to normalise the entire hijacking," he said in an interview with News9.        

In the web series, the hijackers, though Muslims, are referred to their Hindu codenames, such as Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar. Anubhav Sinha, the director of the series, has come under fire. BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya said the hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities, but Anubhav Sinha he said legitimised their criminal intent by furthering their non-Muslim names. 

While the controversy rages on, here's what then Home Minister LK Advani shared about terrorists and where they came from.

ISI operatives based in Mumbai

The Delhi-bound IC-814, with 179 passengers including five hijackers and 11 crew, was hijacked after it took off from Kathmandu on December 24, 1999. The security forces pursuing the trail made a significant breakthrough when they nabbed four ISI operatives based in Mumbai, who comprised the support cell for the five hijackers.

The four ISI operatives were activists of the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), the fundamentalist tanzeem based in Rawalpindi (Pakistan), which in 1997 was declared by the US a terrorist organisation. After this declaration, the tanzeem had rechristened itself as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM).

The Four HuA operatives arrested were Mohammed Rehan, Mohammed Iqbal, Yasuf Nepali, and Abdul Latif. Rehan was a resident of Karachi, while Iqbal was Iqbal was from Multan. Yusuf was a Nepali national. Latif was an Indian from Mumbai who was recruited by the ISI while he was in the Gulf Region. He later underwent intensive training in two camps one in Pakistan and the second in Afghanistan.

Hijack - An ISI Operation

The interrogation of these four operatives confirmed that the IAC Hijack was an ISI operation executed with the assistance of Harkat-ul-Ansar and that all the five hijackers were Pakistanis, the Home Minister said in a statement on January 6, 2000. 

The arrested operatives told the agencies that the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar (Bahawalpur), Shahid Akhtar Sayed (Karachi), Sunny Ahmed Qazi (Defence Area, Karachi), Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim (Akhtar Colony, Karachi), and Shakir (Sukkur city). 

According to the MHA, the breakthrough came when the hijackers through one of their associates in Pakistan contacted their Mumbai Prop Abdul Latif. Latif was asked to tell a certain TV correspondent in London to put out the news on his international channel that if the demands of the hijackers were so conceded they would blow up the plane. This exchange took place on the night of December 29. The cue was promptly followed up, and these four were rounded up. Preparations for the operations were spread for nearly two months, the ministry said. 

Hijackers' Trips To Kathmandu

The hijackers as well as their Mumbai-based associates, particularly Abdul Latif, made several trips to Kathmandu during this period. On November 1, 1999, the chief hijacker, Akhtar, accompanied by Abdul Latif, left Mumbai for Kolkata by air. From Kolkata, they took a train to New Jalpaiguri and then went to Kathmandu by bus. Abdul Latif returned after dropping Sayed Shahid Akhtar at Kathmandu.

On December 1, 1999, Abdul Latif made another trip to Kathmandu, along with Shakir. This time he travelled by train to Gorakhpur and from there onwards to Kathmandu by bus. On December 17, 1999, Latif took an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi and returned to Mumbai by train.

ISI's Role In Hijacking

Apart from the testimony given by the four Harkat operatives, Pakistan's complicity in this diabolic hijacking episode is borne out by the events that occurred in the course of the hijack episode itself, the MHA noted in its detailed summary. 

A little while before the departure of IC-814 from Kathmandu, a Pakistan Embassy car (42 CD 14) arrived at the aircraft. Among the three officials who dismounted from the car and proceeded to the departure lounge was one who is believed to have supplied a consignment of RDX to a group of Punjabi militants in Kathmandu some years back.

When the hijackers took control of the aircraft and announced that the place had been hijacked their first directive to the Pilot was: 'Proceed to Lahore'.

At the Indian pilot's request, ATC Lahore declined to permit the Indian Airlines place to land but when on its way back from Amritsar, the chief hijacker spoke to ATC-Lahore and urged him that the plane had to be refuelled, the ATC Lahore allowed it to land, and provided it fuel. 

Out of the 36 prisoners whose release was demanded by the hijackers as many as 33 were Pakistanis, one was a UK national of Pakistan origin, and one was an Afghan. Only one was a Kashmiri Indian. "Pakistan's interest in getting these prisoners released is evident," the MHA said.