The Kandahar hijack incident has been generating buzz since Netflix began streaming the miniseries “IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack.” In this context, let’s explore some intriguing facts from our recent political history about this infamous hijack.
On December 24, 1999, people had queued up before then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh’s place with bouquets and sweets to congratulate him on the birth of his granddaughter. Amidst this, a person whispered something in Jaswant Singh’s ear which made his rush to the telephone. Within the next few minutes, he was in a meeting of the Crisis Management Group (CMG) that was set up after the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814.
A.S. Dulat, the chief of intelligence agency RAW at that time, writes in his autobiography ‘ A Life in the Shadows’ that Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh first tried to talk to America. When things did not work out, he asked for help from Britain. There was no response from there either. Finally, he also spoke to the Foreign Minister of Taliban, but could not find any solution. After negotiations, India agreed to release three terrorists as demanded by the hijackers.
Ministry of External Affairs’ Joint Secretary Vivek Katju, RAW’s CD Sahay and Intelligence Bureau’s Ajit Doval, who were negotiating with the hijackers in Kandahar stressed that someone who could take quick decisions should be sent to Kandahar to negotiate with the hijackers. This was because a lot of time was being wasted to get answers or approvals from Delhi over and over again. Therefore, Jaswant Singh decided to go to Kandahar. Though some officers of the Ministry of External Affairs and their family members were against this, he made already made up his mind.
Dulat writes in his book that Ajit Doval was in constant touch with him from his first day of reaching Kandahar. On December 30, 1999, Doval had called him, after a meeting which was held before releasing the terrorists. Doval said on the phone, “Sir, it is very difficult to stay here. Now these people are threatening us. They are saying that if we don’t sign any agreement, we should leave immediately. They told us to go wherever we want. I don’t know what these people will do to the passengers or to us now…”
When Jaswant Singh reached the Kandahar airstrip with the terrorists who were released, no one from the Taliban side came to meet him for a long time. He kept waiting at the plane. Jaswant Singh wrote in his autobiography “A Call to Honor: In Service of Emergent India” that the silence was bothering them. Vivek Katju came up to hims and asked, “Sir, will it be right to release these terrorists before our passengers? You have to decide…” Singh said that he had no other option but to take a quick decision.
As soon as the three terrorists got down from the plane, a loud sound could be hear coming from below. The family members of these terrorists and their relatives were present at the spot and were hugging them. At that moment, the airstairs of the plane were removed so that no one could get down from the place. When the ISI and the Taliban were convinced that the three terrorists were the same that they had demanded to be released, they placed the airstairs against the plane again. By then, it was almost dark.
At 5:00 pm, Ajit Doval went up to meet the passengers on board Indian Airlines flight IC-814 which was hijacked and was parked at Kandahar. Doval assured everyone that it was just a matter of a few more minutes. Rehan Fazal wrote on BBC Hindi, “When Doval started coming down the plane after meeting the passengers, two hijackers Burger and Sandy came up to him. They gifted him a binocular…” Later, Doval wrote that they told him that they used to keep an eye on every activity outside the plane with those binocular.
Ajit Doval took those binoculars to Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh when he was on his way to Delhi from Kandahar. Doval shared, “Jaswant Singh said- This (binoculars) will always remind us of our bad experience at Kandahar. Then, I handed over the binoculars to him as a souvenir.”
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