Aug 06, 2016 09:32 PM
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As the world prepared to celebrate the last Christmas of the Century followed by welcoming the New Year day of the millennium, a chilling mid-air hijacking took place in Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 from Kathmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi, India, on the afternoon of 24th December, 1999. Thus begins the ordeal for on board 178 passengers and 8 crewmembers, which lasts for 173 agonizing hours.
It is this background on which Neeleah Misra, a 26-year-old correspondent with the Associated Press, New Delhi, has written this book. Journalist Misra, though not a passenger of the ill-fated flight, has tried to portray a real life story of the entire hijacking episode, based on interview with passengers, crews, govt. officials and other journalists.
The book traces how meticulously the whole operation was planned by the Pakistan based Muslim terrorists, how they maintained contact with their accomplices based in various cities of India, how they got forged Indian passports.
It also portrays the presence of Pakistani ISI agents in Kathmandu and the serious security breaches that occurred at Tribhuvan International Airport at Nepal, how the five hijackers nicknamed Chief, Burger, Doctor, Shankar and Bhola boarded the aircraft with arms and ammunitions. The mid-air hijacking of the Airbus 300 around 4:30 p.m. and subsequent landing at Raja Sansi Airport at border town Amritsar at 6:35 p.m. and taking off from the Indian soil at 7:30 p.m., gave Indian authorities ample time to storm the plane or to plan a rescue. The author has beautifully portrayed the confusion at Amritsar airport, confusion among the higher-ups in govt and the so-called Crisis Management Group at New Delhi and loss of valuable time for proper reaction to the incident. Finally, when the govt wakes up and sends commandos, the plane has left Indian soil and landed at Al Minhad military airport about thirty km off Dubai, U.A.E. By then Indian diplomatic initiatives through USA and UAE brought some results as 25 passengers and one dead body of Ripan Katyal is off boarded. As the plane leaves UAE and lands at Kandahar in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, the fate of the passengers as well as that of the Indian govt was sealed. The book recreates and brings alive the drama, tension and horror of this longest hijacking drama of Indian aviation history; it gives us a seat right in front of the action wherever it was - in Kathmandu, Amritsar, Dubai, Kandahar, the corridors of power in New Delhi and, of course, inside the plane. In their eight days in captivity, the passengers including Rachna, the widow of the recently married Ripan Katyal went through every emotion known to mankind. By now the Indian govt entered a no-win situation as the hijackers are in a country rulled by fundamentalists, a govt not even recognized diplomatically by India, and in home front increasing pressure from the relatives of the hostage passengers and an increasing media exposure. And finally a scaled down demand after intense and prolonged negotiations saw the release of three jailed Kashimiri militants Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargae, Ahmed Omar Syed Shaikh from India, in exchange for the remaining passengers. Neelesh also describes how the hijackers and the freed terrorists calmly melted to Pakistan with the help of aiding Talibans.
The book consisting of 202 pages and 11 chapters portrays beautifully the entire hijacking episode and shows the world the ugly head of terrorism. The descriptions are enhanced by the set of 29 colour real-life photographs capturing the various moments of the hijacking. I assure this is going to be a good buy and you will never be bored.
