How Masood Azhar was released and got sheltered in Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Ahead of President Xi Jinping's visit to India, China today said it is "ready" for talks with India on its entry into the NSG but defended extending a hold on India's bid for a UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar, saying Beijing is opposed to anyone making "political gains in the name of counter-terrorism". Though China is the lone member among the 15-member UNSC to oppose the ban on Azhar, Beijing claims that "different views" existed about India's application against Azhar. Here's how Masood Azhar was released and got sheltered in Pakistan:

• Indian Airlines Flight 814, known as IC 814, an Airbus A300 was enroute from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, on Friday, 24 December 1999.

• At around 5:30 PM when the plane touched Indian airspace, it was highjacked.

• There were 176 passengers and 15 crew members on board.

• One of the five terrorists, threatened to blow up the plane with a bomb and ordered the pilot to several locations.

• After touching down in Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai, the terrorists finally forced the IC814 to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

• At that time most of Afghanistan was under Taliban control.

• The motive for the hijacking was to secure the release of three militants in Indian prison – Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar.

  Taliban Islamic militia commandos head towards the hijacked Indian Airlines plane at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan. Scores of commandos surrounded the hijacked plane while militia increased security measurements by deploying tanks and Stinger missiles. AFP Photo

• The hijackers forced the passengers to stay in their seats, day and night, for a week. Some were blindfolded, separated from their spouses and children, beaten and tied up.

• At one point, the hostages went 26 hours without being given anything to eat in an unventilated plane filled with the stench of overflowing lavatories. The hijackers were armed with pistols, grenades and kitchen knives.

• Captain Devi Sharan was the pilot of the plane and Anil Sharma was the chief flight attendant.

• The hijackers had killed a passenger, Rupen Katyal, 25, and stabbed another, Satnam Singh, but he survived.

• Katyal was said to have been attacked after the aircraft left Amritsar’s Raja Sansi Airport, where it had landed for refuelling.

• Twenty-six passengers were released in Dubai, the hijackers’ next stop before they took the plane to Kandahar.

Hijacker emerges from the nose section of an Indian Airlines aircraft which stands on the tarmac at Kandahar airport.

• The hijacking had a dramatic end since the Indian government had to free three terrorists- Masood Azhar, Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sayeed, in exchange for passengers held hostage in Afghanistan’s Kandahar for a week.

• After the three militants landed in Kandahar, the hostages aboard the flight were freed. On 31 December 1999, the freed hostages of the Indian Airlines Flight 814 were flown back through special plane.

• The passengers returned home on New Year’s Eve in 2000.

• Masood had been arrested in 1994, accused of being a member of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, one of Kashmir’s leading militant groups. He had been kept in a Valley jail before freed in exchange for the hostages.

Masood Azhar, later formed the dreaded Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit, and Omar Sheikh, later jailed for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl. The current NSA, Ajit Doval led the team that negotiated with the hijackers of the IC 814.