Here’s the link about hijacking!! http://meadev.nic.in/opn/2000jan/11ht.htm
By Samuel Baid
The difference between earlier hijackings and of flight IC-814 is that never before has India conceded the hijackers’ demands.
Since 1971, six hijacked IA planes have been taken to Lahore by either the so-called Kashmiri militants or pro-Khalistan activists. The first was a Fokker Friendship which was hijacked from Srinagar to Lahore on January 30, 1971 by Hashim Qureshi and Ashraf Qureshi of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The hijackers demanded the release of 36 members of the Front and political asylum in Pakistan. India rejected the demand and expressed shock at the Pakistani decision to grant asylum to the hijackers.
This was the first hijacking in South Asia and it exposed Pakistan’s attitude towards this kind of terrorism. The hijackers were treated as heroes and given asylum in that country, the Fokker Friendship plane was destroyed and the Pakistani authorities refused permission to an Indian plane to take back the released passengers. The passengers had to return by road.
When India banned Pakistani flights over India, Pakistani intelligence agencies came up with a fantastic theory that the hijackers were Indian agents. A special tribunal set up to try them declared them as Indian agents and gave them long jail terms. In May 1980 the Pakistan Supreme Court declared them as freedom fighters and released them.
From his exile in Holland, Qureshi has written a number of articles and books, recalling that the hijackers were trained in Rawalpindi and, after the hijacking, Pakistani intelligence agents forced them to destroy the plane.
This hijacking, perhaps, had more to do with the Pakistani establishment’s suspected conspiracy to create a situation in which they can get rid of East Pakistan than to generate a Kashmir-related frenzy. The Indian Airlines plane was destroyed when India was asking for its return knowing fully well that the Indian Government would react by banning Pakistan’s overflights to East Pakistan. Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi has written that the military leadership in Rawalpindi wanted to say to the people that it is helpless to save East Pakistan.
In September 1976, when an IA Boeing was hijacked to Lahore, Pakistan showed another kind of attitude. It got the passengers and the plane released and punished the six Kashmiri hijackers with one month’s simple imprisonment. This punishment was given not for hijacking the plane but for entering Pakistan without due documents.
We see yet another change in Pakistan’s attitude in September 1981. Five Sikh youths hijacked an IA Boeing to Lahore. Among other things, the hijackers demanded the release of Bhindranwale and other pro-Khalistan activists. Pakistani commandos had no difficulty in overpowering the hijackers and releasing the passengers. But Pakistan refused to return the hijackers to India on the plea that they would be tried in accordance with the country’s own laws. After the March 1981 hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines plane from Karachi to Kabul, allegedly by the activists of Al-Zulfikar, Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s government had prescribed stringent punishment including death for hijacking. They were accordingly tried in Pakistan, but Pakistani newspapers at that time reported that the five Sikh youths were treated as guests.
On July 5, 1984, nine supporters of Bhindranwale hijacked an IA Airbus, demanding Rs 25 crore in foreign currency and threatened to blow up the plane if these demands were not met within six hours. India refused to budge. After 20 hours they released the passengers on their own on what they said “humanitarian grounds”. Radio Pakistan said the hijackers gave up under psychological pressure from Pakistani security forces. The hijackers surrendered to the Pak government. India’s demand that these hijackers should be handed over to it was again rejected.
On August 24 the same year, seven pro-Khalistan youths hijacked an Indian Airlines Boeing In Lahore it was refuelled and then it flew towards Dubai where it was not allowed to land and therefore landed in Karachi where it was refuelled. The plane was again taken to Dubai where the passengers were released. What was unique about this hijacking was that the hijackers boarded the plane in Chandigarh without arms. Passengers saw a pistol in the hands of the hijackers only when two cartons of what was supposed to be snacks were brought to the plane for passengers in Lahore. All these hijackings had been bloodless. But on Sept. 5, 1986, a Pan-Am plane with 382 passengers was stormed by four hijackers in Karachi. They killed 21 passengers including 17 Indians and two Americans of Indian origin.
If you see, Pakistan operates the same way. It either helps them and doesn’t call them Indian Agents or it helps them and calls them Indian Agents!!
It always dissocciates itself from Hijackers, but always provides them support!!
Your country has a strange Governemtn with ‘Trouble India and Take Kashmir’ motto my friend!!