Commando team which should have been in Delhi was in J&K

Not only precious hours were wasted in this but even the NSG failed to utilise the time to put its team together. According to the laid down anti-hijacking drill in the NSG “war book”, a crack team of 50 Black Cats and a special aircraft is always supposed to be ready in Delhi to tackle an emergency situation. “They are supposed to be in a position to leave for the site within 30 minutes of being informed,” said an official.

But it was not to be. The NSG team which was supposed to be in Delhi was in Srinagar. The team in Srinagar was informed only after 6.30 pm, when the Crisis Management Group gave the green signal to NSG. It was asked to be on an alert and be prepared to reach the hijacked plane if it landed on Indian soil. When details came in that hijacked IC 814 had landed at Amritsar around 7 pm, the NSG team was dispatched from Srinagar. And the CMG failed to give any instructions to the clueless Raja Sansi airport authorities and the local police about handling the situation till the arrival of the NSG team. The hijackers, through the pilot, asked for refuelling of the aircraft. In the panic situation, nobody remembered to take the basic measure of blocking the runway and prevent the hijacked aircraft from taking off. Not even the NSG team when it finally arrived.

“There was not even a single person available there who was equipped to deal with the hijackers. Nobody even tried to open a negotiation channel with them,”an official disclosed. By the time the Commando team which should have been in Delhi, was in Srinagar Ã?NSG team arrived, the hijackers were impatient and started threatening to kill passengers. The local authorities had already sent for the oil bowser used to refuel Airbus 300, which initially they had problems locating. The NSG team asked them to slow down, to give them time to react.

By then, the oil bowser was close to the aircraft. Suddenly, it was ordered to stop and the pilot was told to move the aircraft towards the bowser. “This was the time that the hijackers felt something was amiss and ordered the pilot to take off immediately. The airport authorities and NSG had frittered away the perfect chance to bring the hijackers to the negotiating table,” he said.

“Either the runway should have been blocked or if that was not possible, the simplest would have been to shoot at the aircraft’s tyre so that it is in no position to take off. That was the time to take the lead. The pilot had done a commendable thing by landing at Amritsar but it was wasted,” the official added.

In the meantime, the panicked NSG was trying to put another team together at Delhi. And by the time it was done, the hijacked plane had taken off from Raja Sansi. The second team only managed to reach Chandigarh and stayed put there.

NSG Director General Nikhil Kumar remained unavailable for comment.