IC814
HIJACK
Who Goofed at Amritsar, the CMG or the
NSG?
Crisis Management Group (CMG)
Chairperson and Cabinet Secretary Kumar learnt of the hijacking at 5.30
p.m. while he was in South Block meeting Principal Secretary Brajesh
Mishra. He gave instructions for the CMG to meet at 6.00 p.m. at the Civil
Aviation Ministry. The meeting was attended by chiefs of RAW and IB, NSG,
the home secretary and Mishra. The decision to delay refuelling was
conveyed to the Aerodrome Committee in Amritsar. The NSG was told at 6.25
p.m. to leave for Amritsar. It was ready to depart at 7.10 p.m. but waited
for the negotiators. At 7.40 p.m. CMG told NSG to leave without the
negotiators. NSG left at 7.55 p.m. and arrived at Amritsar an hour after
the hijacked plane had departed.
By Harinder
Baweja and Saba
Naqvi Bhaumik
Time Wasted
For 55 minutes, from 5.30 p.m. to 6.25 p.m. when it seemed that the
hijacked plane could land at Amritsar, the CMG operated without urgency.
Instead of telling the NSG at 6.25 p.m. to leave, the CMG should have had
the commandos in readiness once the first news of the hijacking came in.
It takes time for the NSG to load heavy anti-hijacking equipment onto an
aircraft. The process should have begun at 5.30 p.m. and the destination
intimated at 6.25 p.m. when the NSG was asked to leave for Amritsar. The
CMG erred on two counts. First, it didn't factor in IC 814 leaving
Amritsar audaciously without refuelling. Second, it didn't consider the
possibility of the plane having another shy at Lahore from where it had
been turned back hours before. It was clear from the pilot's interaction
with the Amritsar ATC that the hijackers would rather the plane crash. It
was also clear that the plane had more fuel than claimed. At 6.04 p.m. the
pilot said he had an hour's fuel; at 6.32 p.m. he reported 15 minutes fuel
left. The CMG didn't assess the discrepancy.
Passing the Buck
Controversy surrounds the arrival of the NSG commandos in Amritsar an
hour after the hijacked plane had flown away. What caused this inordinate
delay? The commandos took off from Delhi at 7.55, 90 minutes after the NSG
director was alerted by the cabinet secretary. The NSG claims it was ready
to leave by 7.10 but twiddled its thumb waiting for the negotiators to
arrive. Apparently, none of the five notified Central negotiators were
available. Ultimately, raw negotiator C.K. Sinha managed to join the
flight but IB negotiator Nehachal Sandhu failed to make it to the airport
on time. Says NSG Director Nikhil Kumar: "I gave the clearance when
the CMG decided at 7.40 that we should leave without negotiators."
But raw chief A.S. Dulat is claims emphatically that "the aircraft
was not delayed because our negotiator was not there on time". It now
appears that a second aircraft was standing by to carry the negotiators.
Babudom Strikes
Was it mandatory for the NSG to carry negotiators? The Government's
Contingency Plan for hijacks refers to Central negotiators advising the
CMG on strategies to deal with the hijackers. But if the inclusion of
Central negotiators was mandatory, the CMG wouldn't have directed the NSG
to leave without them. The Plan says that an effort should be made to
carry a Central negotiating team but pending its presence, the local
Aerodrome Committee should engage the hijackers. This dedication to
procedures ensured that the response mechanism was shown to be grossly
inadequate. Compounding the offence was the bizarre fact that the NSG
director was a member of the CMG!
Mindful that something went wrong in
Amritsar, the Government has set up an inquiry. A senior cabinet minister
says: "We must set an example so that in future this sort of delay
does not take place." But the track record of committees doesn't
inspire great confidence in the Government's ability to learn from its
mistakes. Especially when it involves the babus.
Could the plane have
been stopped at Amritsar?
The pilot, Captain D. Sharan, first
told Amritsar at 6.04 p.m. on December 24 that Lahore wasn't permitting
the aircraft to enter Pakistani air space. Repeatedly asking for help, he
said that Lahore should be contacted as the hijackers were ready to crash
rather than land at Amritsar. Saying he was short of fuel, he radioed at
6.44 p.m. that he was descending at Amritsar. The plane landed at 7.01
p.m. and abruptly took off at 7.49 without refuelling. A distraught pilot
told the ATC that the hijackers had started killing passengers.
Confused Signals
The Aerodrome Committee (AC) headed by District Commissioner
Narinderji Singh was in session, with Airport Director Vijay Mulekar and
senior police officers present. According to the Contingency Plan
guidelines, the AC is supposed to engage the hijackers in protracted
negotiations to provide time for the Crisis Management Group (CMG) to
evaluate the situation and the Central team of negotiators to arrive and
take charge.
The Amritsar ATC was instructed to delay
refuelling for as long as possible. Principal Secretary to the Prime
Minister Brajesh Mishra says he asked a senior police officer in Amritsar
"if it was possible to puncture the tyres of the plane". The
officer, according to Mishra, got back after five minutes to say he would
try and do that by sending Punjab Police men with the fuel tanker. Mulekar,
who was in direct conversation with the pilot, however, maintains that
leave alone instructions, there wasn't even a suggestion that the plane be
immobilised. The AC lacked clarity of purpose.
Flawed Perception
The real problem was the assumptions that both the CMG and the AC
proceeded on. Neither thought that the plane would take off without being
refuelled. Delhi, Mishra conceded, also thought the plane couldn't budge
as Lahore had already denied it permission to land. Nobody realised that
despite the distress signals from the pilot, the plane had more fuel than
was being claimed. Its engines were on for all the 48 minutes it was
parked at the Amritsar runway. At the first sight of an approaching
tanker, with a concealed team of Punjab Police commandos, the hijackers
panicked and the plane did a dare-devil take-off.
Why didn't the hijack
drama end in Dubai?
More than nine hours after it was hijacked, IC 814 was allowed to land
at 1.30 a.m. on December 25 at the Al Minhad Air Force base, 40 miles from
Dubai. Twenty-six women and children were released and the body of Rupin
Katyal flung down a chute. Five hours later the aircraft took off for
Afghanistan, where it was unable to land earlier as both Kabul and
Kandahar airports lacked night-landing facilities.
India had no clue
By the time it became clear that the plane had to land somewhere in
the UAE, India had contacted the Americans for help. Foreign Secretary
Lalit Mansingh called US Ambassador Richard Celeste in Delhi and Mark
Sheehan, the special coordinator of the Counter Terrorism Unit in
Washington. Mansingh informed senior ministers that the "US have
promised all possible help and said that if need be they would not allow
the aircraft to take off from Dubai". It was the Americans who had
pressured Dubai to accept the aircraft in the first place. According to a
senior cabinet minister: "As the Indian ambassador was kept out of
the airport and not allowed to speak to the pilot we were totally in the
dark."
A curious series of events unfolded at
Dubai. An assurance was given to India by the UAE and US interlocutors
that the hijackers would release all 70 women and children in the
aircraft. But only 26 were released and Katyal's body thrown out. At dawn,
the aircraft took off for Afghanistan.
One interpretation being given by the PMO
is that the UAE was reluctant to get embroiled in a hijacking involving a
so-called Islamic cause.
US did not deliver
The US doesn't appear to have been too enthusiastic about leaning on
the UAE to terminate the hijacking.
On January 6, Ambassador Celeste called
on Home Minister L.K. Advani where he was informed of India's
disappointment. The US version given to Jaswant Singh is that the pilot
didn't follow instructions to taxi to a soft ground where the aircraft
could have been immobilised and subsequently stormed by waiting commandos.
The Dubai incident is being seen in
official circles as a reminder that India still ranks low on the American
list of priorities. |
