From the India Today archives (2000) | Kandahar hijacking: How IC-814 passengers were freed (2024)

When a visibly sombre Atal Bihari Vajpayee informed the nation in the final hours of 1999 of India's first resolution of the new century he sounded less than convincing. It's not that his desire "to join hands across nations to rid the world of terrorism" lacked sincerity; it was bereft of credibility. Just a few hours before, the Government had to digest the awkward spectacle of the country's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh escorting three terrorists to their freedom. In exchange for the lives of 155 passengers and crew of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814.

For Vajpayee, it was a descent from a moral high. Gone was the Kargil hero assertiveness of December 26: "My Government will not bend before such a terror." In its place was the meek claim that the Government was able to "substantially scale down" the terrorists' demands. Given the phenomenal odds stacked against India that was true. But public opinion see-sawed between relief over the safe return of the hostages and anger at the humiliation inflicted on the Indian state by five masked gunmen. In December 1989, the release of five Kashmiri terrorists in exchange for Rubaiya, the daughter of the then home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, ended the V.P. Singh government's political honeymoon. Will the deal at Kandahar have the same effect on Vajpayee's second innings?

It didn't seem so on the evening of December 31 when relieved relatives jostled with the media to welcome Singh and the hostages from Kandahar. Delhi businessman Narender Soni couldn't conceal his ecstasy. His blood pressure that had shot up to an abnormal high came down to normal when he heard on the radio that the Government had successfully negotiated the release of the passengers which included his son, grandson and brother in-law. "It was like coming back from the dead, getting a new birth. I cannot tell you how happy I am."

For people like Soni and others who had staged noisy and hysterical demonstrations before the prime minister's residence, the Government had acted in the national interest. "We got back our 155 for their three. My thanks to Singh," said an anxious relative.

But against this were other voices, including that of a BJP functionary who described the deal as a "national humiliation". Driving the anger was concern that the successful hijack would revive India's status as a soft target for terrorists. "The nation paid a heavy price for trading the hostages for militants. The aircraft should have been stormed," says Chandrika Ghosh whose husband was one of the hostages. Adds G.K. Bhatt, one of those who underwent the eight-day ordeal, "We would have preferred to die for the sake of the country."

These are sentiments that are certain to have an instant gut appeal, not least among sections that viewed the BJP as a bulwark against the namby pamby approach of those who L.K. Advani claimed fed terrorists biryani. Although only 55 terrorists were either exchanged for hostages or given "safe passage" since 1989, the last incident - involving safe passage for 40 terrorists from the Hazratbal siege in Srinagar - happened in 1993. Despite no let up in actual outrages, Indians had deluded themselves into believing that anti-terrorism was an article of faith and non-negotiable.

Of course, it is grossly unfair to interpret the deal in Kandahar as a reversal of policy and the beginning of a new era of permissiveness. "In times like this even the Israelis have released terrorists," said a PMO official, "That doesn't mean that their fight against terrorism has received a setback."

The fact that the drama around the hijacked Airbus-300 was played out in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has a special significance. For the past three years, India had no diplomatic contact with Afghanistan and Kandahar was the centre of the jehad launched against India by, among others, the infamous Osama bin Laden. Nor was the West much use in dealings with the Taliban and certainly not since the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against the regime last year. Admitted a senior Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official: "For us it was one of the most difficult assignments in recent times. We were expected to develop a rapport with the Taliban with whom we hardly had any communication, leave alone relationship."

How India went about the job establishing contact with a hostile regime and ended up negotiating the safe return of captive passengers is an instructive lesson in diplomacy. Far from showing India as an insignificant, bit player on the global stage, the eight-day crisis showed the emergence of a self confident world player. As opposed to the time India shunned international contact or concentrated its energies on anti-colonial solidarity, the hijacking brought out the country at its diplomatic best.

In a sense, the timing of the hijack, though quite disastrous for those who organised the prime minister's 75th birthday celebrations and the BJP National Council meet in Chennai, did not throw Indian diplomacy off guard. On December 24, when the hijack began, a high-powered Indian team was in the midst of discussions on crucial security issues with an American team that included US Under-secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Einhorn and OSD South-East Asia Bureau Matt Daley.

Singh contacted Talbott and made three specific requests: the US should issue an immediate condemnation, pass on to India any information it had on the hijackers and use its good offices to influence all concerned governments. Washington did more than what was strictly necessary. Special Coordinator of the Counter-Terrorism Unit Mike Sheehan extended all help to Indian investigative agencies and Talbott instructed all US missions to do their bit.

When the hijacked aircraft landed in Lahore, the US consul-general was instructed to visit the airport and report back to Washington. Likewise, it was a discreet nudge from the US that facilitated the landing of the hijacked plane in Dubai. At Dubai, some military action was also contemplated with American assistance but the hijackers took off for Kandahar before the scheme could become operational.

Once the hijacked aircraft was stationed in Kandahar, the help Washington was able to provide was naturally limited. With no direct access to the Taliban, India tried to ensure that a maximum number of international observers descended on Kandahar. To begin with, it was decided to involve the UN in a big way. The agency responded by sending Erick De Mul, the UNDP chief in Pakistan, as an observer and negotiator.

Though De Mul's negotiating abilities drew some flak in Delhi, he did manage to persuade the Taliban authorities to pay some heed to conditions inside the aircraft. Passengers, for example, say that by the fourth day the toilets had become virtually unusable and the smell unbearable. It was the presence of an international team - organised at India's initiative - that played a major role in improving conditions on the aircraft. By the sixth day of the hijack, the passengers had enough food, drinking water and improved sanitary facilities.

These were not glamorous achievements but the advances have to be measured against the difficulties of dealing with a fanatical and somewhat brutal hijackers on the one hand and a Taliban that was supremely unmindful of the niceties of normal diplomatic conduct.

Getting through to the Taliban was the biggest challenge. The problem wasn't merely the fanatical beliefs of the movement and India's track record of unflinching support to the hated Najibullah regime. Pakistan's tremendous influence argued against India coming within a earshot of sympathetic consideration. Says an official of the Prime Minister's Office: "For the first two days we went slow because we were waiting to see what stand the Taliban took."

The first contacts were made, ironically, courtesy a section of US-educated Taliban leaders. Through various interlocutors, including Pakistanis, India was able to impress the Taliban that the hijack, far from being the occasion to be vengeful, actually presented an opportunity to the pariah regime. If the Taliban conducted itself with apparent restraint, it would help offset Afghanistan's image as a rogue state.

The approach appears to have worked. Despite the emotional links of the Taliban with the cause of the hijackers, it was quick to distance itself from the act of piracy. After the first meeting of the Shoora, the regime made it clear that it would not countenance any harm to the passengers. Violence against passengers would invite sharp, swift retribution. Then, in an interview to The New York Times, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said he had no sympathy for the hijackers just because they happened to be fellow Muslims.

However, it is clear that the Taliban operated on parallel tracks. The new mood of restraint was coupled with its traditional preference for the rough and ready. Many of the hijacked passengers believe that the arsenal of the hijackers was replenished by supplies from the ground in Kandahar. Chander Chhabra said that the hijackers initially possessed two pistols and two hand grenades but after they landed in Kandahar four more hand grenades appeared. It's a claim that passenger Mushtaq Ahmad also makes.

Given the Taliban's duplicitous conduct, there were many who felt that Singh need not have personally made the trip to Kandahar, since it also involved the ignominy of having to rub shoulders with the three terrorists released in exchange. The point is well made but India's foreign minister was not really chasing short-term returns. He was making a human investment in a regime whose cooperation is necessary in the long-term fight against terrorism in the region.

As a first step, Singh has secured the assurance that neither the hijackers nor the released terrorists would be able to get political asylum in Afghanistan. That would leave these fugitives from international law with no alternative but to turn to Pakistan, thereby confirming Indian charges of Pakistan sponsored terrorism in the region.

In dealing with the Taliban there is no question of instant returns. The dozen or so NSG commandos who accompanied the Indian delegation didn't get a chance to put their skills into practice. The Taliban made it absolutely clear that there was no question of any foreign power using Afghan soil to mount a police action on the aircraft. But this didn't stop the Taliban from putting pressure on the hijackers to settle directly with the Indian negotiators. When negotiations broke down on December 29, the Taliban more or less coerced the hijackers into resuming.

The problem didn't centre on the exaggerated sum of money the hijackers demanded or the inflated numbers they wanted released from Indian prisons. In the final stages, the rift was over the numbers to be released. India first offered to release five of the 36 terrorists on the hijackers' wish list. However, Indian negotiator Vivek Katju insisted the choice of the five would be India's and wouldn't include any Indian national. The hijackers didn't buy that. So the final compromise was that only three militants of the hijackers' choice would be released. Apart from Maulana Masood Azhar, a Pakistan national, and Ahmad Omar Sayid, a British national, the hijackers chose Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, a Kashmiri terrorist.

Three, five or 36, the release of even a single terrorist is calculated to draw flak. But when the Cabinet met on the morning of December 31, the Government was left with limited choices. Intelligence agencies reported that the increasingly desperate hijackers had decided that January 1 would be their final deadline. After this they would either start killing the passengers one by one or blow themselves up along with the aircraft, passengers and all. After their release, many passengers have confirmed that the hijackers were firm about the New Year's Day deadline.

At the same time, there were clear indications that the Taliban would insist that the aircraft leave Afghan territory by January 1. With the service chiefs clearly ruling out any military option and the Afghans insisting that the hijackers wouldn't settle for anything less than three militants, Vajpayee decided that the drama could not be prolonged any longer. The day before he had briefed President K.R. Narayanan and was also keen to consult Congress President Sonia Gandhi who, however, was not in Delhi.

These compulsions notwithstanding, the final decision to barter three terrorists for the hijacked passengers and crew will be hotly debated in the months to come. There is no doubt that in the short run the deal will embolden the terrorists in the Kashmir valley. But any short-term damage to the Indian resolve to combat terrorism uncompromisingly will depend on whether or not the security forces can notch successes on the ground.

If terrorism is curtailed, the Kandahar deal will come to be regarded as an aberration forced by circumstances. If, however, terrorists get the upper hand, the Government will find that the problem will begin to be traced to the happenings in Kandahar.

For India, the fight against terrorism has rarely involved easy options. But whereas the battle was earlier seen in only military terms, the hijacking has shown that there is a global constituency waiting to join the fight. The route of the hijacked IC-814 has also been a voyage of discovery. A voyage that began unexpectedly at Kathmandu airport.

—With Sayantan Chakravarty and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

(The article was published in the INDIA TODAY edition dated January 10, 2000)

Subscribe to India Today Magazine