The Netflix series on the IC-814 hijacking has stirred up a public debate, reopening old wounds. Why, asked the government, have Hindu names been used for hijackers? It mattered little that those were the pseudonyms used by the hijackers all through the ordeal. That was easily fixed by each episode beginning with a caveat showing the real and assumed names.
The more complex issue is why the ISI was not blamed. ISI’s complicity is established by the sequence of events preceding the hijacking, including the role of their agents and the Pakistani embassy car in Kathmandu. There was also the close nexus between the ISI and the Hizbul Mujahideen or its variant Harkat-ul-Ansar to which Maulana Masood Azhar, the principal militant leader released at Kandahar, belonged. But Netflix is an international platform and thus would resist broadcasting any claim that cannot be firmly established, especially if it points a finger at Pakistan’s army. The Pakistani embassy car has been shown in the serial, though the exchange between the officials of the two nations at the Kathmandu airport appears contrived.
The third allegation is that the bureaucracy has been lampooned unnecessarily. Lighthearted banter was avoidable as it is doubtful that senior officials in the middle of a developing crisis would indulge in it. I have known two members of the Crisis Management Group (CMG), led by the Cabinet Secretary, and have now spoken to both. I needed that as I am finishing my book that covers the Dubai part of the hijack. Some years ago someone in Bollywood was referred to me by journalist Harinder Baweja to discuss the Dubai segment. I consulted a Mumbai lawyer, who deals with film-related issues, and was advised to avoid it for two reasons. One, I wanted to tell my own story later in a book. Two, it is difficult to control what the producers call “dramatic liberties”.
That the hijackers managed to fly out of Amritsar by threatening the pilot, after knifing two passengers, will always remain controversial. Sarabjeet Singh, then Director General of Police, Punjab, was in touch with both Chief Minister P S Badal and the CMG. The former advised caution. DGP had Punjab police commandos available at Amritsar airport but had three problems. One, his commandos were untrained to breach and enter a plane. They also did not have light automatic weapons necessary for close combat that would have ensued inside the plane’s cabin. Finally, he had zero intelligence as claims of hijackers, as reported by the pilot, were obviously exaggerated though partly true. Under those circumstances, when he was also told that the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos were en route, he played safe.
The delay in dispatching commandos from Delhi due to first arranging a plane and also finding a negotiator seems indefensible in retrospect. But in real time the protestations by the pilot that he had almost run out of fuel before landing at Amritsar were believed. Captain Devi Sharan had to use that ploy to convince the hijackers that the plane must land immediately. But the plane did have enough fuel to attempt another landing at Lahore. The distance between Raja Sansi Airport at Amritsar and the Allama Iqbal International Airport at Lahore is just 42 kilometres. That is where Delhi erred, as the decision-makers thought the plane stood grounded. The instructions to disable it were given but commandos approached cautiously, hiding behind the fuel bowser headed to the plane. The abnormal movement of the bowser, first too fast and then suddenly slow, caused panic amongst the hijackers.
The Dubai segment of the hijacking has never been fully reported. I took over as ambassador to the UAE nine months before the plane’s arrival at Al Minhad air base, Dubai, at midnight on December 24, 1999. Again a serious possibility existed to end the hijacking there. Why it failed is what my book shall reveal. But just one “teaser”. There was no Pakistani quoting from the Quran, as shown in the Netflix series. Two persons engaged the hijackers from the control tower — both Emirati Arabs.
The political lesson is obvious. If the hijacking had been handled by a Congress government the current uproar may have had a different tone and logic. Because it was then a BJP-led government of Prime Minister A B Vajpayee with L K Advani as home minister, the criticism now is more measured. But it must be realised that though India was the target, there were global dimensions. As the plane landed at Kandahar, Osama bin Laden was living at the Al Matar complex next to Kandahar. As my book will spell out, he was then finalising the 9/11 attack on the US.
The immediate failure may have been the Indian government’s, but the Pakistan-inspired conspiracy boosted global terrorism, the long-term effects of which hound Pakistan even today.
KC Singh is former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
