HC orders inquiry into alleged hijack attempt

The judge ordered that the probe committee should include Mizoram home secretary, law secretary and director general of police and fixed May two for the submission of the inquiry report before the Court.

Grinder had submitted before the court that he was innocent and was falsely implicated in the case based on the alleged confession of another accused K Ranju Rangam, who had allegedly gone to `inspect’ Lengpui airport in Mizoram in February posing as a `director of civial aviation’.

On being arrested, Rangam had confessed that he had impersonated the official "to carry out a hijack operation at a future date as per a conspiracy hatched by Grinder”.

However, he obtained bail from a lower court where he retracted his statement implicating Grinder in a criminal case and instead claimed he was forced to do so.

However, Grinder, a major intermediary in Naga peace talks, submitted before the Court that Rangam "on being severely tortured by the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) sleuths was compelled to implicate the petitioner (Grinder) in a criminal case."

Alleging that the Mizoram Government in its bid to coverup its "weak security arrangements" at the Lengpui airport had implicated him in a "false case," Grinder petitioned that the FIRs against him may be quashed and he be given compensation for the damage to his and his family’s reputation.

Grinder in his petition said he was a contractor and lived in Noida in Uttar Pradesh and had met Rangam only once when a relative introduced them at a hospital.

He was arrested in Calcutta on March five on his arrival from Bangkok on charges of planning a hijack and is now on bail.