Govt pressurised negotiators to end hijacking by Dec 31: Doval

Pressure from the government and hysteria back home by relatives of passengers prevented negotiators to force the hijackers of an Indian Airlines planeto scale down their demand to release just one terrorist, says AK Doval, India's chief  negotiator.

Ten years after the traumatic passengers were released after a costly exchange of three dreaded terrorists on New Year eve, Doval, a former IB chief, says demands may have been reduced to release of just one terrorist if negotiators had got some more time.

Pressure was building from the government to quickly secure the release of passengers and finish the task before the clock struck midnight heralding the new millennium, he said.

"That was something that was adding pressure on us ki ab app key paas 12 ghante bache hain (you have 12 hours left)...
the pressure was from the people. The pressure from the people was on the government, the pressure from the government would be transmitted to the negotiators and they were telling the people are getting restless," 64-year-old Doval told PTI here.

The intelligence agencies negotiated with the terrorists for seven days under tremendous domestic pressure to secure the release of passengers.

The hijack crisis ended after three dreaded terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, who later founded Jaish-e-Mohammed, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh — were released in exchange for the lives of 149 passengers and a 15-member crew of the plane.

Many of the terror attacks in the country including the 2001 Parliament strike have been linked to the three freed terrorists. "If the government was not under pressure, they would have said boys take your time, you are doing a good job...If you want, at your judgement close it, not at our judgement. I am not telling that we could have succeeded but may be we have brought it to two, it could have become one(terrorist) there was a possibility," Doval said.

He recalled the episode as an "opportunity lost" for India. "Opportunity lost...from my personal angle as an operational man, I think an opportunity lost.... it's not only at Kandahar but right from the very beginning from Nepal to this thing," he said.

The government was constantly asking us to do something and secure the release of the weary passengers, he said.

"New millennium is starting. What are you fellows doing? ap log kuch kariye (do something). Isko jitne mein hota hai kariye. Passengers ko wapas laeiye(bring back passengers)," said Doval recalling a conversation with authorities in Delhi

Doval felt the government of the day should not have been obsessed with symbolic event like start of a new millennium.

"Hazaar saal baad phir aajayega. Koi baat nahin lekin we will try to sort out with. So we were trying to gain time both from the terrorists and also from the public but it is a public opinion which was putting the pressure on top of it," he said.

He said India could have held on for more time because the hijackers, though behaving rudely, were reducing their demands but refused to divulge messages that he was getting from the government in New Delhi.

"My personal feeling about this I think we should have held on for some more time...I think so because they were coming down on their demands," Doval said. Doval said the the hysteria kicked up home on the prolonged crisis lent urgency to seek the release of the passengers and the crew.

"The public pressure, the relatives' pressure, the processions, the TV, the media, the headlines and others put the pressure on the negotiators to think that this time we will finish it," the Kerala-cadre IPS officer said of every stage of the negotiations with the hijackers.

Doval said to bring down demands for the release of terrorists from 36 to three was a "stupendous task".

"110 hours of talks...we were talking our lungs out to explain it to them and trying to see in what way, by what tactics, by what method we could sort out the thing," he said.

The terrorists were also cashing in on the public pressure that was building in India, he added.

"The biggest argument that they (terrorists) were making was that you have got no option but to consider our demand. Look at your TV. We could not see it but they could see it because the (Pakistan) ISI chaps had been telling them what was happening on the streets and outside PM's house," he said.