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Decade after hijack: Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked ten years back in year 1999 during its way from Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, Nepal to Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, India. India is more alert after that incident and is now prepared to tackle any such circumstances. Indian airports have high security now by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and sky marshals are also present in the flights and a fortified internal security mechanism as well to tackle any such conditions. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has also prepared an aviation security manual which assures with three stage classification process for shooting down a hijacked aircraft. India is not compromising for any kind of delay or lack in the security matter and intelligence agencies of India are also very active to provide information which can help to avoid any kind of incidents in future. Home Minister P. Chidambaram said warning officers of Intelligence Bureau on Wednesday that there will be no room for any kind of complacency and India has better coordination among the intelligence agencies to share the information. He said we were still lucky enough and there can be another major crises like hijack or attach like that in Mumbai so we have to be alert every time so that no such incident takes place with us now. E Ahamed, Minister of State for Railways said that we have to be careful for future and we have an anti hijack policy to solve the problem with the hijackers. Hijack was ended with the one casualty of young married man.

About the hijack of IC 814: Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked by Pakistani militants on its way from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24, 1999. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen which is a Pakistan based militant group was responsible for the hijacking of the plane just after short time of entering into the Indian air space. After hijacking they tried to land into Amritsar for refueling but they had to take off without refueling and then they landed in Lahore for refueling in emergency conditions but Pakistan refused to offload the female and children passengers from the flight. After their militants took plane to Dubai where they left 27 passengers including one young man of age 25 years who was injured by the militants badly and later he lost his life. He had gone to make honeymoon with his wife to Nepal. It was only one casualty which took place during the hijack. After that hijacked plane left from Dubai for Kandahar International Airport, Afghanistan. Taliban authority agreed to act as mediator between the terrorists and Indian government so that life of passenger who were made hostage by militants can be saved.  The hijackers demanded the release of 35 militants which were in Indian jails and 200 million US dollars in cash from Indian government to release the hostages. Indian negotiators persuaded the militants in reducing the demand and made them to agree on release of three prisoners. The released militants were Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.  On December 31, 1999 Indian former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh went to Afghanistan with the to release the hostages in exchange of three militants. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is in Pakistan jail as he was arrested for killing of an American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Maulana Masood Azhar is running the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group which was responsible for the Indian parliament attack in 2001 while Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar is roaming free and is playing active role in training Islamic militants in the region of Kashmir which is administered by Pakistan. Two movies were also directed on the incident of hijack of IC 814 fligh named “Zameen” and “Hijack” which shown the incident in sequence. One documentary film was prepared by one company Miditech of Gurgaon, Haryana which was shown on National Geographic channel. Neelesh Misra, a New Delhi based correspondent of the Associated Press written a book “173 Hours In Captivity” explaining all the sequence of events inside and outside the hijacked plane during the hijack. He has explained how the passengers, crew members lived during the hijack and how uncomfortable they were feeling at that time. Nepali film director Dayaram Dahal is also planning now to make the first Nepali film on the hijack drama of Indian Airlines flight IC 814.

Present scenario: At present India have far better security than from past and there are manual as well as computerized checking to avoid any kind of hijack. India has now good relations with Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan and India has also invested 1.2 billion US dollars in socio economic reconstruction of their country. But still there is always a danger that Taliban can take over which is topic of concern for India but India is ready to tackle any kind of conditions. Nepal has also increased their security level on their only international airport in Kathmandu. They have learned from the last hijack and don’t want to take chance in future. Indian Airlines and Jet Airways combine flights from Kathmandu to New Delhi, Kolkata, Varanasi and Mumbai accounts for about 6,000 seats per week so it is important concern of security for the Nepal and they have made their security system according to guidelines of International Civil Aviation Organizations to avoid future hijack.  Dinesh Prasad Shrestha who is general manager of the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu said that we have learnt from the hijack of IC 814 and now the security measures have been enhanced at the international airport to prevent any kind of repetition in future. According to officials of Nepal, Nepal police and Nepal army both are used now to look for the security of airport and many advanced techniques are also in use to check the baggage of the passengers as well as body with X-ray machines. Moreover Indian, Pakistani and Middle East states passengers are thoroughly examined so that there is no chances of any kind of mistake.