Suspect in 1999 hijack of IA plane is arrested

Agencies/Srinagar

A December 30, 1999 photo shows Taliban militia commandos ride in the rear of a truck towards the Indian Airlines plane hijacked by Kashmiri militants which stands on the tarmac at Kandahar Airport

Police in Jammu and Kashmir have arrested a militant suspected of involvement in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane that was flown to Afghanistan, a government spokesman said yesterday. Mehrajuddin Dand, alias Javed was arrested by police in Kashmir’s Kishtwar district yesterday morning, ending a near 13-year-old pursuit of the militants behind the high-profile hijacking. The New Delhi-bound Indian Airlines aircraft with 176 people on board was seized and flown to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar by five men after it took off from the Nepalese capital Kathmandu on December 24, 1999. Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, a spokesman for the home ministry said that Dand was arrested in the morning and that the “initial investigation reveals that he provided logistical support to the hijackers.” Media reports said that Dand had provided assistance and fake travel documents to the five hijackers, none of whom were apprehended by police after the incident. Dhatwalia said Dand moved across the border between India and Pakistan for years until police nabbed him. “He is being questioned in a number of other cases as well, but we cannot reveal those details yet,” he said. A police officer confirmed news reports that police received a tip-off that Dand, originally from Kashmir’s northern town of Sopore, had returned from hiding in Nepal due to age and ill health. Police officials told CNN-IBN news channel Dand’s arrest was the “biggest terrorist catch” in the state in the past 25 years. Dand is also suspected of involvement in the 1996 bombings in a New Delhi market that killed 13 people and wounded 39. Dand had close ties with a senior diplomat, whose name has not been revealed, in Nepal who helped him in various activities including the hijacking, Inspector General of Police Dilbag Singh said.The Indian Airlines plane was forced to land at three different airports - Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai - before being taken to Kandahar, the bastion of the then Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In Dubai, Rupin Katyal, one of the passengers, was fatally stabbed by the hijackers.The aircraft spent a week on the tarmac in Kandahar.The hijack crisis ended after the then Bharatiya Janata Party-led government swapped three militants imprisoned in New Delhi for the captives. Dilbagh Singh said Dand started underground activities in north Kashmir in 1987. He then joined the first militant group in 1988 and went for arms training to Pakistani Kashmir.“He was arrested in 1989 and lodged in Kot Bhalwal jail (on Jammu’s outskirts) where he met (United Jehad Council chief) Syed Salahudin and other top militants,” Dilbagh Singh said. He was released from jail in 1990. The UJC is the highest decision-making body for all the militant groups.He went to Pakistan from the Wagah border about four to five times on fake passports and different identities. “He was expert at making fake passports, which he made for himself and several of his associates,” the officer said, adding that this had been revealed during initial interrogation.