Harkat ul-Mujahideen had hyperlinks prior to now with Osama.
At 4.53 pm on December 24, 1999, Indian Airways’ flight IC-814 took off from Kathmandu for Delhi. A two-hour lengthy flight lasted virtually eight days when terrorists of Pakistan-based outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) hijacked the Airbus A300 plane. The final day of the twentieth century was certainly one of the difficult for the then-Atal Bihar Vajpayee-led authorities.
What Have been Their Calls for?
The plane landed in Amritsar, then in Lahore, and later diverted to Dubai, lastly touchdown in Taliban-controlled Kandahar in Afghanistan on December 25 at 8:33 am. The scenario was not in India’s management and it was time for negotiation with the hijackers. A staff of officers, together with present Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval, from related ministries had been despatched to Afghanistan to barter.
Then-Overseas Minister Jaswant Singh, within the Lok Sabha, gave particulars of what the terrorists wished and the way negotiations had been carried out. Mr Singh mentioned, “The Taliban suggested the hijackers to offer their full calls for whereupon the hijackers demanded the discharge of 36 terrorists in our custody, the coffin of a useless terrorist, Sajjad Afghani, and a sum of US $200 million.”
The minister made the calls for public and the Taliban suggested the hijackers that calls for for cash and the coffin of Sajjad Afghani had been un-Islamic. They modified the deal and insisted that Masood Azhar be launched in alternate for 15 hostages, a requirement which was once more rejected by the negotiators.
However earlier than their closing calls for, Mr Singh mentioned, “The primary formal demand made by the hijackers to our officers in Kandahar was the discharge of terrorist Masood Azhar in alternate for the discharge of 10 Indians and 5 overseas hostages. This piecemeal strategy was rejected by the Authorities. Each the Taliban and the hijackers had been knowledgeable that till there was a full and unambiguous detailing of calls for, there might be no talks.”
Who Was Sajjad Afghani?
Sajjad Afghani was the commander-in-chief of Harkat ul-Ansar who was killed throughout a jailbreak try within the high-security Kot Balwal Jail in Jammu in July 1999. Afghani together with different terrorists had dug a 23-foot tunnel inside a cell, a number of extra ft and they’d’ve escaped however the jail guards managed to catch them and Afghani was killed in a conflict.
Curiously, Masood Azhar was the final secretary of Harkat ul-Ansar. Afghani and Azhar had been arrested in 1994. Each had been in the identical barracks from 1997 in Kot Balwal Jail in Jammu after Azhar was shifted from Tihar Jail in Delhi to Jammu. His physique was taken by the police to Gujjar Nagar in Jammu and locals buried him in the primary graveyard.
Why did he matter?
Harkat ul-Ansar was shaped by the merger of two Pakistan-based terror outfits, Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami and Harkat ul-Mujahedin. The merger of the 2 teams was a part of the Afghan Jihad. It occurred at a time when a civil battle broke out in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the Soviets and radical Islamist teams wished to realize energy.
The group discovered success in Jammu and Kashmir and Sajjad Afghani performed a central function in its operations. Stories say round 60% of its 1,000-strong cadre had been Pakistani and Afghans. The Indian Armed Forces in J&Ok succeeded in capturing its prime leaders – Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, Sajjad Afghania and Nasarullah Manzoor Langaryal (Commander of Harkat ul Mujahideen).
Al-Faran kidnapped 4 foreigners in Delhi to discount the discharge of Harkat ul-Ansar leaders. However the plan failed and Delhi police arrested Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British pupil of Pakistani origin who was launched in the course of the Kandahar hijack. Omar Sheikh killed The Wall Road Journal’s Daniel Pearl in 2002.
The US had put a ban on Harkat ul-Ansar for its associations with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The ban made overseas funding tough and the outfit was renamed Harkat ul-Mujahideen. The hijackers onboard IC-814 had been members of the identical group.
Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Zargar and Omar Sheikh had been launched from jail to safe the passengers onboard IC-814. Masood Azhar, the dreaded terrorist, went on to kind Jaish-e-Mohammed, the outfit behind the 2001 Parliament assault, 2016 Uri, 2019 Pulwama, 2008 Mumbai assaults and a number of other different incidents in Jammu and Kashmir. He reportedly obtained funding and backing from Osama and Pakistan’s ISI. Masood Azhar was additionally the mentor of Omar Saeed Sheikh.
Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval, who was a Particular Director within the Intelligence Bureau and was a part of the negotiating staff mentioned that the Indian Airways flight IC-814 hijackers had been actively supported by the ISI, including that if that they had not acquired help from the ISI, India might have gotten the hijacking vacated.
Kandahar was Osama’s fortress. Regardless that the Taliban was in energy Opium and cash laundering had been key belongings of income for the Taliban regime. Helmand and Kandahar, the 2 provinces managed the commerce and Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda ran a parallel administration within the province. Harkat ul-Mujahideen had hyperlinks prior to now with Osama and Kandahar was a haven for the terrorists to barter.