Hijacked Afghan passengers return home

KANDAHAR, FEB 14: Eight days after their aircraft was hijacked and taken to Britain, 73 passengers returned home to Afghanistan on Monday ...

KANDAHAR, FEB 14: Eight days after their aircraft was hijacked and taken to Britain, 73 passengers returned home to Afghanistan on Monday to a hero’s welcome.

Rose petals fell like rain on passengers as they stepped off their chartered aircraft in southern Kandahar, the headquarters of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban army. The Taliban’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil welcomed them with an embrace, chocolates and new shalwar kameezes. In keeping with the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam, there was no contact with women disembarking from the aircraft.

Juma Khan stepped off the aircraft and kissed the ground. "This is my home. I love it very much," he said. Abdul Farid, another passenger, wept when he disembarked. "Why wouldn’t I come home? this is my country, this is where my family is, my heart," said Farid, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "Afghanistan is my love."

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Also on the tarmac at Kandahar airport was Tines Taermose, a representative of the Geneva-based InternationalOrganization for Migration, which chartered the flight from Britain. She was there to help the passengers return to their villages.

"All of them are coming back voluntarily to Afghanistan. Now we have to get them home," she said. On board the aircraft were 60 adults and 13 children, including the 10 crew members of the hijacked aircraft.

"We have our people home. We are very happy," said Muttawakil. For the returning passengers, their arrival in Kandahar ended an odyssey that began last Sunday when the Ariana airlines plane was hijacked en route from Kabul to northern Mazar-e-Sharif. It made a series of stops on a journey that traversed central Asia, Russia and ended in Britain last Monday.

British police negotiated an end to the hijacking drama on Thursday and everyone on board was allowed to leave the aircraft. Muttawakil urged Britain to reject the requests for refuge saying that to grant them asylum would be to encourage hijacking.

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He said the asylum seekers are economic refugees, not politicalones. He also promised that they would not be punished if they returned home.

13 Afghans charged

LONDON: British police on Monday charged 13 Afghans with the hijacking of the Afghan airliner. Meanwhile the authorities here have drawn up a plan to disperse asylum-seekers to countries with significant Afghan refugee populations. Thirteen Afghans have been charged with unlawfully seizing the aircraft and its passengers with the use of force or threat, an Essex county police spokesman said.

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