That the Taliban helped the hijackers of Flight IC-814 once the plane was forced to land in Kandahar is well known. But now there’s new evidence to nail the complicity.
Kabul’s then Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttavakil, who became the Taliban’s face during that hostage crisis, has told the CBI that Maulana Masood Azhar—one of the three militants hand-delivered by India to secure the hostages’ release—met Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s ‘‘supreme leader.’’
The meeting, says Muttavakil, according to the interrogation report, took place soon after the hijack where he was an eyewitness.
‘‘I met Maulana Masood Azhar in the house of Mullah Omar a month or two after the hijack,’’ Muttavakil is quoted in the interrogation report as saying. ‘‘He was accompanied by a large number of bodyguards…We exchanged pleasantries and no other talks took place (between us).’’ Muttavakil adds that he was sure of the ‘‘identity of the person meeting Mullah Omar’’ since US interrogators had shown him Maulana Masood’s photograph.
Azhar, after his release, founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group now on the international terror blacklist and responsible for the December 13 Parliament attack and several terror strikes in the Valley. In fact, National Security Advisor J N Dixit says Azhar alone is responsible for ‘‘killing 400-500 persons.’’
Accessed by The Sunday Express, the interrogation report also reveals that Muttawakil spoke at length to the CBI about the involvement of Mullah Omar and the Kandahar Commander-in-Chief General Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Usmani.
‘‘It is possible General Usmani might have supplied the sophisticated arms and ammunition to the hijackers in the intervening night of December 25th and 26th,’’ Muttavakil said.
Story continues below this ad
This is a reference to the cache of arms and explosives which the five hijackers flaunted soon after the aircraft was forced to land in Kandahar.
Asked about the presence of Pakistani officials in Kandahar airport (along with Indian negotiators) during the five days of the stand-off, Muttavakil said: ‘‘It could have been arranged in consultation with General Usmani and the airport manager.’’ He also said that Usmani ‘‘could have’’ hosted a dinner for the five Pakistani hijackers and the three released militants. The CBI, which interrogated Muttavakil last October for two days, has moved diplomatic channels to conduct another round of questioning with Muttavakil. Muttavakil was one of the first of the Taliban senior leadership to surrender to US forces in Feburary 2002. He was released and sent back to Afghanistan in October 2003. And, as he admitted to the CBI, was interrogated eight times by US officials.
