Hijackers not here, says Taliban Govt

ISLAMABAD, JAN 24: Taliban government in Afghanistan on Monday said the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane were not in Afghanistan and...

ISLAMABAD, JAN 24: Taliban government in Afghanistan on Monday said the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane were not in Afghanistan and "we don’t know there are".

"None of them (hijackers) are inside Afghanistan and we don’t know where they are," Taliban Foreign Minister Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil told reporters here.

Mutawakil, who is here on a three-day official visit said the Taliban Government had given the hijackers 10 hours time to leave the country. "Keeping innocent people hostage is an undesirable act and we have condemned it."

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Asked about the whereabouts of Pakistani militant Maulana Masood Azhar, he said none of the Afghanistan diplomatic missions "had issued a visa to him… If he applies for a visa, we have no legal problem (to grant him one)".

On Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, he said the Taliban had never asked the Arab multi-millionaire to leave Afghanistan.

Once, he said, Bin Laden had showed "willingness to leave Afghanistan and had asked for some technical assistance. But it could not take place because of the negative attitude of the United States."

He said that his government had asked the US and other countries to provide evidence of Laden’s involvement in terrorism so that he could be tried in a Shariah court in Kabul. "But all of them failed to produce any evidence within the stipulated 40 days."

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