Commando action was being planned to end hijacking: Doval

Sumir Kaul
New Delhi, Dec 25 (PTI) India had planned to carry out
a commando action to end the hijack of Indian Airlines plane
-- IC-814 -- at Kandahar airport in December 1999 before the
crisis could be resolved after a one-week ordeal, a former
official said Friday.
New Delhi had also made desperate efforts to get the
Taliban's backing for the raid by playing the religious card
telling the militia that holding scores of passengers hostges
was an un-Islamic act, he said.
A decade after the hijacking of the aircraft to the
south-eastern province of Afghanistan, A K Doval, India's
Chief Negotiator with the hijackers, recalled the tense
moments while engaging in hours of talks to secure release of
nearly 160 passengers.
The former Intelligence Bureau Chief said that at one
point of time they had planned a commando action and a bid was
made to convince the Taliban that a free hand be given.
"We tried...we tried to convince Taliban...as much as I
could, telling them that situation is bad and we might have to
take action to vacate the hijackers and it is un-Islamic,"
recalls 64-year-old Doval, the first police officer to be
awarded India's second highest military award Kirti Chakra.
"We will be grateful if you could help...but Taliban's
standard reply was that they would not allow a single drop of
blood on our soil...so they did not allow anything like that,"
Doval told PTI here.
The Indian Airlines plane was hijacked on December 24,
1999 by five Pakistani hijackers identified as Ibrahim Athar,
Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim
and Shakir. (MORE) PTI