Kandahar hijacked Kashmiri lives in Nepal

NEW DELHI: On December 24, 1999, shortly after Indian Airlines flight IC-814 left Kathmandu and entered Indian airspace, it was hijacked by five Pakistanis. The plane was forced to land in Afghanistan, where the hijackers agreed to release the hostages in exchange for three terrorists.

After seven days of rigorous negotiation, the government agreed to release the terrorists. On December 31, 1999, the freed hostages were flown back to India.

The hijacking came as a jolt for the government as it caught the intelligence machinery unawares. A systematic operation was soon launched by both the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing through the Nepal police to identify Kashmiris in the kingdom with suspected terror links.

Over the next few months, the Nepal police arrested several dozen Kashmiris, mostly from Kathmandu. Many of them were businessmen. But a source, who was involved in the operation, said: “They were not clean. All had some links with Kashmiri militants.”

A source conversant with the developments said the understanding with the Nepali police was that each of those nabbed would be shown as having been arrested in India.

But somewhere down the line, the relationship between the Indian intelligence agencies and the Nepal police soured. The probable reason, said the source, could have been the sudden spurt in the number of encounters. The Nepal police found themselves in a spot after the mysterious disappearance of so many Kashmiris whom they had handed over to Indian agencies.

DNA did not, however, find evidence to show that the informal arrangement between the Nepal police and Indian agencies had been called off at any point.

According to an intelligence officer, who did not want to be identified, about two dozen Kashmiris were brought to India in early 2000. Most of them later disappeared. The officer admitted that the Kashmiris were in all probability shot dead in fake encounters in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and elsewhere.

The modus operandi was simple. The Nepal police brought the Kashmiris to the border and handed them over to IB officers, who were mostly accompanied by Delhi police personnel.

The Kashmiris were brought to Delhi. After interrogation, they were handed over to the police forces of Delhi or its surrounding states, who later claimed that the terrorists had been arrested at a railway station or a bus stand.

Before the hijacking, Kashmiris brought from Kathmandu were shown as terrorists nabbed with explosives in Gorakhpur or Delhi. But after the hijacking, they have never been shown as arrested.

The family members of Ghulam Mohammed Sofi are clueless about his whereabouts. Then there was Delhi businessman Yunis, who was also picked up from Kathmandu. He has  been reported missing by family members.                                  

Local reports and some of the Kashmiris hunting for their loved ones say 17 of those picked up between August and September 2000 are missing.

Wazir Ahmed was lucky to be let off after 10 days in the custody of the Nepal police. He was picked up from his shop in Kathmandu on August 16, 2000. Later that day, he was forced inside a van in which his uncle, Sofi, was present along with a local couple.

“That was the last time I saw my uncle,” said Wazir. Sofi was then in his 40s.

“We have met a number of people in Kathmandu and New Delhi. I even met LK Advani when he was deputy Prime Minister,” said Sofi’s mother, weeping.

Wazir said the search for his uncle met with the same frustrating reply from the Nepali authorities that they were operating on the orders of the Indian embassy. An appeal in the Nepal Supreme Court, too, produced no result.