- Monday, September 16, 2024
Gopalaswami Parthasarathy claims the al Qaeda had no involvement in the 1999 hijack of Air India’s Kathmandu-Delhi flight
By: Shajil Kumar
FORMER Indian high commissioner to Islamabad Gopalaswami Parthasarathy has said that 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft to Kandahar was totally Pakistan’s handiwork and al Qaeda was not involved.
The Indian Airlines’ Kathmandu-Delhi flight was hijacked by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from the Nepalese capital.
In an interview to India Today, Parthasarathy said, “It was totally Pakistani involvement. The terrorists involved were Pakistanis, the terrorists released were Pakistanis. There is no question of al Qaeda, that is the farthest thing to say.”
The new Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, directed by Anubhav Sinha, has been accused of giving a clean chit to Pakistan’s spy agency the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) by linking the hijackers involved with Afghanistan and al Qaeda.
The former diplomat alleged that Pakistan had delayed his flight from Islamabad to Lahore, when he was prepared to visit the hijacked plane.
Before the hijacked plane reached Kandahar, it had stopped at Lahore, Amritsar and Dubai.
Parthasarathy said it is hard to blame the then Indian government for releasing the terrorists as the hijackers were armed and lives of Indian passengers were at stake.
He felt it would have been ‘irresponsible’ to try military action. “We were not willing to take risk with our own people” he added.
‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ started streaming on Netflix from August 29 and has run into controversies.
Many social media users alleged the names of the hijackers have been changed to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly protect the terrorists.
Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju summoned the Netflix India’s contend head, Monika Shergill, to convey the government’s strong disapproval.
Following this Netflix tweaked the opening disclaimer to include the real and code names of the hijackers.
The names of the five terrorists are Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir.
