IC 814: How the 1999 'Kandahar Hijack' Exposed India's Weaknesses

The hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight 814 on 24 December 1999 is one of the sorriest episodes in modern India's history of handling national security issues. The outcome of this terrorist attack (now a TV series) was that India was forced to release Masood Azhar, who is now the leader of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, and two other terrorists.

IC 814, an Airbus A 300 piloted by Captain Devi Sharan, was hijacked by five men as it entered Indian air space on a flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi. Subsequently, it touched down in Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai, and finally on 25 December, Kandahar, the principal headquarters of the Taliban which controlled Afghanistan.

The flight carried a total of 191 persons, including 15 crew and five of the hijackers. By the end of the drama, one person had been killed and more than a dozen injured.

India had virtually no contact with the Taliban till then and soon it became clear that the Taliban regime had no intention of intervening. On the other hand, they surrounded the aircraft with their own personnel to ensure that India did not take any military action against the aircraft. The negotiations dragged on for seven days and ended with India being compelled to release Azhar, British-Pakistani terrorist Ahmed Saeed Omar Sheikh, and Kashmiri terrorist Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.

Previous Attempts to Free Masood Azhar

There can be little doubt that the primary motive of the terrorists was to obtain the release of Masood Azhar, considered at that time to be a top ideologue of the Harkat-ul-mujahideen. At the end of 1993 and the beginning of 1994, Indian authorities caught a number of top Pakistani terrorists—Nasrullah Mansur Langaryal in November 1993 and Sajjad Afghani and Masood Azhar in February 1994 who were travelling together in Kashmir.

Subsequently, there were several attempts to obtain their freedom.

The first effort involved Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh himself. He kidnapped a number of Western tourists in New Delhi in September 1994 and attempted to trade them for Azhar and other jailed terrorists. But the police were able to rescue them and Sheikh was wounded in the police action and was subsequently jailed in India.

Then in June 1994, two foreigners were kidnapped in Pahalgam and sought to be exchanged for the jailed terrorists, but this did not work out either as pressure from locals resulted in an uproar and forced their release.

The third attempt came a year later in July 1995 when six Western tourists were kidnapped again in the Pahalgam area and the terrorists demanded the release of Masood Azhar in exchange for them. Of these, one managed to escape and another was killed but the other four foreigners were never found again.

The December 1999 hijack was the fourth attempt and it succeeded. The perpetrators of the action were a highly dedicated and trained team of terrorists who were Azhar’s erstwhile disciples in the Harkat-ul-mujahideen.

Initial Missteps

To say that India was caught by surprise at the hijack would be an understatement. For a while, confusion reigned as the fast-moving event unfolded and this resulted in many missteps. There was supposed to be a contingency plan to deal with the situation, as well as two committees, the Crisis Management Group (CMG) headed by the Cabinet Secretary and the Central Committee headed by the DG of Civil Aviation, but they were unable to cope with the quick developments.

The aircraft landed in Amritsar at 7 pm or so, and the hijackers insisted that the pilot move it around to prevent any assault by Indian commandos. New Delhi ordered that the Amritsar authorities delay refuelling till an NSG commando team reached there. The CMG ordered that the aircraft be blocked from taking off, but no clear instructions were given as to how this could be done.

It was around this time that the hijackers knifed three passengers, among them Rupin Katyal, who was seriously injured and later died. Eventually, the hijackers threatened to kill Captain Devi Sharan and he was forced to take off from Amritsar.

The big question is, why were the tyres of the aircraft not shot off to prevent it from taking off?

The aircraft could only have been blocked as a prelude to a commando assault. Unfortunately, by that time, around 7:45 pm, the NSG commandos who could have stormed the aircraft had not even taken off from New Delhi.

Eventually, the Hijackers Won

With the aircraft out of Indian air space, the game was lost. After a brief halt for refuelling at Lahore, the aircraft took off for Kabul around 10:30 pm, but since that was closed for the night, they headed for Dubai at the instructions of the hijackers. After American intervention, the UAE authorities permitted the aircraft to land at their Al Minhad Air Force base where it touched down around 1:30 am.

There was some thought given to the idea of storming the aircraft using UAE commandos or the NSG, but nothing happened. At about 6:30 am on Christmas Day, the aircraft took off for Kabul but was ordered to fly to Kandahar instead, where it landed at around 8:30 am.

The Indians had to now establish ties with the Taliban. But first, they had to decide whether or not they wanted to negotiate, and who would be the negotiators. The hijackers had faxed a message from the Kandahar ATC to Delhi spelling out their demands, the first and foremost was the release of Masood Azhar.

On 27 December, the Indian team headed by Vivek Katju, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, along with IB official Ajit Doval and CD Sahay of R&AW landed in Kandahar. Reportedly, they also had 20 commandos in the aircraft, but the Taliban were quite clear that they would not permit any assault on the aircraft.

The hijackers now put up their demand for the release of 36 prisoners, the remains of Sajjad Afghani who had died in an Indian prison, as well as $200 million. But they eventually settled for Azhar, Omar Sheikh, and Zargar. The demands caused considerable debate and discussion within the government but in the end, New Delhi had little choice but to concede.

On 31 December, the last day of the millennium, a special aircraft with the three terrorists and the Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh arrived at Kandahar. Singh tried to persuade the Taliban to arrest the hijackers and act against them, but in vain. The hijackers and the three terrorists were driven to the Pakistan border and allowed to go.

Masood Azhar Has Actively Targeted India Since IC 814

Later the identity of the hijackers was revealed to be Ibrahim Athar, brother of Masood Azhar who was the leader, Shahid Akhtar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir -- all members of the Harkat-ul-mujahideen. Zahoor Ibrahim was reportedly killed in Karachi by two gunmen on bikes in 2022. This was part of an alleged campaign by the R&AW to eliminate terrorist leaders in Pakistan.

As for the released terrorists, they became active once again. Masood Azhar founded the Jaish-e-Muhammad which is perhaps the leading Pakistani terrorist organisation targeting India today. It was responsible for the October 2001 attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2016 Pathankot attack, as well as the 2019 Pulwama attack.

Azhar lives in Bhawalpur under the protection of the ISI. Omar Sheikh was involved in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. He is currently in a Pakistani jail. As for Zargar, he is living in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

The hijacking brought out the many infirmities of the government's handling of such situations. Established contingency plans proved useless, as did the crisis management machinery. It was clear that such contingencies could not be handled from New Delhi alone and needed a more agile and decentralised system.

Many of these failings came to haunt India again in 2008 when Pakistani terrorists led a seaborne attack on multiple targets in Mumbai. It took the Indian security forces three days to kill the nine terrorists and arrest one. Meanwhile, 166 people were killed and over 300 injured.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)