NEW DELHI, MARCH 19: The royal city of Patiala is likely to be the scene of some hectic activity in the coming months. Reason: the CBI has chosen a designated court in the city as the venue for the hijack trial of IC-814, where some of the accused are to be produced in the next few days.Some dramatic developments are expected to take place in the hijacking case, with the CBI set to take into their custody key conspirators like Abdul Latif, at present lodged in a Mumbai jail. Some of Latif's accomplices in Mumbai as well as some arms-dealers living along the Indo-Nepal border are shortly to be arrested and taken into custody by the CBI. The agency will then have 90 days to chargesheet the conspirators and arms-suppliers in the hijacking case.While interception of Abdul Latif's telephone call to Abdul Rouf - Maulana Masood Azhar's brother in Karachi - during the hijack had given the firstmajor breakthrough in the case, innumerable other leads have since fallen in place. The CBI has recently received some 300 pages of documents from the Kathmandu police, which give corroboration of the identity of the five hijackers as well as their network in Mumbai and Karachi. Some of these documents were made available after the intervention of Interpol.The investigating agencies are seeing the hijacking as a plot masterminded by operatives of Harkat-ul-Ansar to free Maulana Masood from prison, for which Abdul Latif was picked up during a Haj pilgrimage in 1993 and used as the lynchpin in Mumbai. The agencies have no doubt about the Pakistani nationality of the hijackers, specially since it is now confirmed that Ibrahim Athar or `Chief' was indeed the brother of Maulana Masood. The hijackers procured the fire-arms and hand grenades from HuA sympathizers in the North-East who are shortly to be picked up by the CBI.As far as the hijackers themselves are concerned, officials say that hard intelligence was available about the group of five living under protection in Pakistan till January. Telephone numbers of some hijackers were with Indian intelligence agencies in that period. Now the indication is that the hijackers have shifted to Afghanistan and are probably living in Khost.The documents recently received from Kathmandu are in the form of records, printouts of telephone calls and samples of handwriting of the five hijackers - Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar - most of which are now being translated from Nepali script. What is important is that the handwriting of the hijackers in some of these documents match the handwriting samples in the passport and driving forms filled and notes scribbled by the hijackers for some passengers of the ill-fated flight. Officials say there is corroborative evidence in the form of handwriting samples for four of the five hijackers.Besides the Kathmandu police, help has been forthcoming from Interpol and the American FBI. Assistance from Interpol was sought for confirming the identity of hijackers from foreign passengers and some replies have come in with their help. FBI sleuths have also been in and out of India for the investigations since an American citizen was among the hostages on IC-814 and and a criminal case was also registered by them after the hijacking.CBI officials say that as yet they have questioned over 150 passengers and a majority of them, too, have confirmed the identities of the hijackers on the basis of photographs given to them by the CBI. One Canadian passenger has apparently identified all the five hijackers for the CBI and the questioning of the other passengers and crew is in progress.
