IC-814: CBI gets to man who was the go-between

After being denied access for almost two years, Indian investigators have succeeded in personally questioning Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Afghan...

After being denied access for almost two years, Indian investigators have succeeded in personally questioning Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Afghanistan’s foreign minister during the Taliban rule and key witness in the 1999 hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.

A Central Bureau of Investigation team returned from Afghanistan two days ago after questioning Muttawakil and possibly other Taliban leaders as well. What is not known is whether Muttawakil was questioned for reconstructing the hijack drama or whether he had agreed for a statement to be recorded as a witness in the ongoing trial in Patiala.

It was after a long wait and some hard-nosed negotiations that the CBI was finally allowed to enter Afghanistan last week. Muttawakil, who is now being described as a ‘‘moderate’’ Taliban leader, has been living in Afghanistan under US protection.

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From the time the hijacked IC-814 landed in Kandahar till the dramatic swap of the passengers for jailed militants — including Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Masood Azhar — Muttawakil acted as Taliban’s chief spokesman besides interacting with the Indian negotiators and Pakistani officials.

From India’s point of view — coming close on the heels of US blacklisting Dawood Ibrahim — it is only Muttawakil who can give evidence on the role of Pakistani intelligence officials in the hijack.

Sources recall that on several occasions, Muttawakil had used the Air Traffic Control (ATC) channel to speak to the hijackers and some Pakistani officials. He, more than any other Taliban official, has the total picture of how the hijack was facilitated by Pakistan and where the five hijackers were headed after the drama ended.

Establishing direct contact with Muttawakil, senior CBI officials are now expected to brief the Ministry of External Affairs and then make a request to the Afghan Government for further assistance in the case.

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Besides seeking permission to question Taliban officials, the CBI has been asked US authorities for copies of documents left behind by the hijackers in the Wazir Akbar Khan area.

The CBI has also been pressing for an early indictment of the hijackers in the case that was registered in the US given the fact that there was an American passenger on board the plane.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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