Pak doublespeak on hijackers

Chaman is the closest border crossing to Kandahar and logically the most likely point for crossing into Pakistan, news reports here said.Sattar said the hijackers would face court proceedings under international law if they enter the country, but Pakistan occupied Kashmir Prime Minister Sultan Mahmood Choudhury said he would consider any request from the hijackers to enter.

quot;Under international law dealing with hijacking, we will arrest them and produce them before court,quot; Sattar told editors of Urdu newspapers at an iftaar dinner, adding, quot;I can tell you with fullresponsibility that the hijackers have not entered Pakistan.quot; Quoting the Taliban, Sattar said that the hijackers had left Afghanistan for an unknown destination after expiry of the 10-hour deadline by the militia to leave the country and added no one knows their whereabouts.

Regarding the allegation of presence of arms on the plane, he said the quot;flight had originated from New Delhi and also stopped at Amritsar. The arms could be delivered at these spots.quot;

Referring to External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh8217;s remarks on Friday, Pakistani foreign office spokesman Tariq Altaf accused India of levelling of 8220;baseless and false accusations against Pakistan8221; which, he added, is a part and peculiar element of Indian tactics.8217;

quot;Initially, India alleged that four Pakistani nationals were on board the hijacked plane but finally this allegation proved wrong,quot; he said, adding there was no transit passenger on the Kathmandu-bound PIA flight from Karachi for the Indian plane.

quot;India should refrain fromlevelling such allegations which is being done out of its petty interest sic to hide its shortcomings,quot; the spokesman alleged.

Singh had told reporters in New Delhi on Saturday that all hijackers were Pakistani nationals and pointed an accusatory finger at Pakistan for its role in the hijacking. Quoting the Afghan information minister he had told reporters that all the eight, who were Pakistani nationals, had left for Quetta after attending an iftaar at Kandahar.

Reiterating India8217;s stand National Security adviser Brajesh Mishra on Sunday said there was quot;enough and clearquot; evidence to suggest that Pakistan was involved in the hijacking of the IA aircraft and ruled out the possibility of Taliban having provided arms to the hijackers in Kandahar.

The behaviour of Pakistan from the first day when it said that India had stage-managed the hijacking and that an Indian intelligence agent with a particular seat number was travelling in the aircraft showed Pakistan8217;s intentions, he said participating in aprogramme on Star News.

Meanwhile, reports from the Pakistan-Afghan border said Pakistani authorities are on high alert. quot;We are cautiously alert. We will not allow them entryquot;, Major Rana Aftab, in charge of security at the Khyber pass, was quoted as saying by The News.

quot;As far as we know, all the eight men are no longer in Afghanistan. We had ordered them to leave within 10 hours or else we would throw them out,quot; Taliban spokesman Abdul Hayee Mutmaeen was quoted as saying by the paper.Refusing to speculate on where they were headed, he said, quot;We had made this promise during negotiations between hijackers and Indian Government officials and also to Jaswant Singh and we are abiding by it. We had declared several days ago not to give political asylum to the hijackersquot;.

Afghanistan borders six countries Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The crossing to other countries pass through areas which are either controlled by the anti-Taliban forces or are witnessing ragingbattles.

Plan to put commandos on board
NEW DELHI: The Government is considering to have trained commandos onboard flights to ensure that hijack incidents do not recur, Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav said on Sunday.

Authorities were chalking out plans to tighten security to plug the loopholes that came up when the IC 814 India Airlines Airbus was hijacked on December 24. 8220;The government will leave nothing to chance and the security will certainly be tighter,8221; he told

8212; UNITED NEWS OF INDIA