CBI hopes for IA hijackers trial in a third country

The CBI managed to secure a `Red Corner’ notice against the five hijackers –Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter Sayed and Shakir–and two of their accomplices Yusuf Azhar and Abdul Rauf, believed to be key conspirators.

“Eventhough Pakistan, being a signatory to Interpol conventions, should honour the Red Corner notice, there is a little hope as it seems that Islamabad has no control over the fundamentalist groups sheltering them,” the official said.

The CBI has also not been averse to a trial of these persons in a third country, hopes for which brightened after Federal Bureau of Investigations of the US filed a case in the hijacking and sought help from Pakistan to nab them.

CBI filed a chargesheet against three Indian nationals Abdul Latif alias Patel, Bhupalmar Damai alias Yusuf Nepali and Dilip Kumar Bhujel.

The CBI official said prosecution against the three arrested persons would begin soon after the formalities for declaring the seven accused as proclaimed offenders was complete.

Besides this, the agency has written to Pakistan as Islamabad is under obligation to extradite the hijackers under the Hague Convention on Hijacking and the treaties signed under the SAARC aegis, the official said.

He said the agency has already handed over a copy of the chargesheet to the three Indian accused persons and the trial was scheduled to begin soon in the special session court at Patiala.

According to the chargesheet, Masood Azhar’s release was the motive for the hijack and his rescuers were a part of the same gang of militants who tried to get him released by digging an underground tunnel in Jammu prison in June 1999.

They said it was only in July 1999 that the hijack plot took a concrete shape and the conspirators held several secret meetings in Dhaka and Mumbai.

The chargesheet said a crucial meeting took place in the Kathmandu Zoo on December 13, where Latif was told he would not be on the hijacked plane and should remain as the gang’s point-man in Mumbai.

Thereafter, the hijakcers moved their base in Kathmandu but kept in touch with Abdul Latif, who in turn relayed the message to Abdul Rauf in Karachi, it said.

While Latif and Nepali are alleged to have provided logistical help to the hijakcers and helped them in procuring Indian passports, Bhujel is alleged to have helped them in procuring arms used for hijacking.

The aircraft was hijacked on December 24 while flying in the Indian air space under the control of Air Traffic Control, Varanasi.

A hijacking case was initially registered at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and later transferred to Raja Sansi Airport police station in Amritsar as the plane had landed briefly there before flying to Lahore.

The case was shifted to CBI on January 11 and during thecourse the agency examined 350 witnesses.

Latif and Yusuf Nepali were taken into custody on March24 by the CBI and the agency filed the chargesheet a day before expiry of 90 days statutory limit.

The probe was done in coordination with other agencieslike Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), National Secuity Guard (NSG) and Civil Aviation Ministry, the sources added.