The hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in 1999 is one of the most horrific incidents in Indian history. There was a deep purpose behind this hijacking – to release some dangerous terrorists belonging to the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. The most famous name among them was Maulana Masood Azhar. But apart from this, the hijackers had also sent their demands to the Indian negotiators. Their initial demands included releasing 36 terrorists and giving 200 million dollars (860 crores rupees).
Apart from this, the terrorists had also demanded the coffin of Sajjad Afghani, calling him a ‘martyr’. The demand for the coffin upset the Taliban hardliners. They started pressuring the hijackers to withdraw their demands. The Taliban’s supreme council Shura intervened and held a meeting. It was finally concluded that the hijackers’ demand for money was un-Islamic and should be abandoned. The Taliban leaders said that if the hijackers refuse to accept their demand, they will not be allowed to stay in Kandahar. After this, they withdrew almost all their demands after which India finally handed over the three terrorists in exchange for all the passengers of IC 814. This was in 1999 and Afghanistan was still ruled by the Taliban at that time. Actually, the Taliban wanted to show that it was not involved in this hijacking in any way and it was only negotiating between the two sides. It is believed that the Taliban itself was part of this conspiracy.
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Who was Sajjad Afghani, whose coffin the terrorists were demanding?
Sajjad Afghani was a notorious Kashmiri terrorist of the 1990s. He was from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He was known by the name “Afghani” because he took part in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and got involved in terrorist activities from there. He was involved in several terrorist operations against Indian security forces.
In 1991, Sajjad Afghani became the commander-in-chief of the terrorist organisation Harkat-ul-Ansar in Srinagar. In June 1994, he was arrested by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) along with terrorist Masood Azhar, the then general secretary of the terrorist organisation Harkat-ul-Ansar. According to a report by India Today, the then Brigadier General Staff (BGS) Lieutenant General Arjun Ray described Afghani as his “biggest catch”. Sajjad also fought the Russians.
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen joined with another terrorist organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) to form Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuJ) in 1993. This was Pakistan’s nefarious plan to create more havoc in Jammu and Kashmir. Indian security forces foiled its plan by arresting three of its leaders.
This is how the arrest happened
First, former Harkat-ul-Mujahideen chief Nasrullah Mansoor Langriyal was arrested in November 1993. In March 1994, Harkat-ul-Ansar’s Azhar and its Jammu and Kashmir unit chief Sajjad Afghani were arrested in Srinagar. Sajjad Afghani was the chief commander of Harkat-ul-Ansar and was lodged in Kotbalwal jail, a high-security prison in Jammu. He was shot dead during an escape attempt from the jail on July 15, 1999.
Sajjad Afghani had dug a 23-foot-long tunnel inside his prison cell. If he had dug a little more, he and the other terrorists could have managed to escape. But the guards caught him and 11 prisoners, including Afghani, were killed. This was in July 1999. Five months later, in December 1999, five terrorists hijacked IC 814, which was to fly from Kathmandu to Delhi.
Why is there controversy now?
The controversy continues over the names of the hijackers in the OTT series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, based on the 1999 Indian Airlines plane hijacking incident. Regarding this controversial web series, many people claimed that the filmmaker changed the names of the hijackers to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly save the terrorists coming from a particular community. The real names of the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Saeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry and Shakir. However, the code names of the terrorists in the series are ‘Bhola’, ‘Shankar’, ‘Doctor’ and ‘Chief’. Under pressure, Netflix India said on Tuesday that it has included the real and code names of the hijackers.
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