Maulana talks to his supporters from a mosque in Karachi

Their safe passage was part of the deal to end the hijacking. The hijackers parted company with the freed militants in Afghanistan. The hijackers remained with Azhar and his companions for 25 minutes in a vehicle that was heading in the direction of Pakistan. Then they stopped the vehicle, got out and got intoanother vehicle, said Azhar. It was also then that they freed their Taliban hostage, whom they had taken to guarantee their safe passage out of the airport. "They said, `we are returning to India but we can’t travel with you. We will get there another way,’" recalled Azhar. Then they were gone. He refused to say in what direction the vehicle headed.

Azhar also addressed hundreds of people who had gathered outside a mosque in a Karachi suburb, but the public and media were not allowed to see him. “I have come here to get people who want to take part in the jihad (holy war) for Kashmir and will continue my struggle…And all Muslims should join the jihad for the people of Kashmir, Bosnia and Chechnya,” he said over loudspeakers from inside the mosque.

Pakistan said its border security had been put on alert, but Azhar said there was no attempt by border police to stop his vehicle.

"I am a Pakistani citizen who has done nothing wrong. There is no reason to stop me," said Azhar. He parted company with thetwo other freed militants after crossing into Pakistan. He said he didn’t know where either was headed.

Another freed militant Mushtaque Ahmed Zargar surfaced in Muzzafarbad in Pak-occupied Kashmir. The whereabouts of the third freed militant Ahmed Umar Sayeed Sheikh, a Pakistani-born British citizen was not known.