As the sound of Christmas bells echoed through the air on December 24, 1999, the festive spirit was suddenly disrupted. Indian Airlines Flight 814 or IC814, bound from Kathmandu to Delhi, was hijacked by five masked men, thrusting not just its passengers, but entire India, into a week of dread and turmoil.
The crisis, which unfolded over seven agonising days, wrote itself into the annals of India’s darkest aviation moments. As the nation watched with bated breath, the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee faced scrutiny for its handling of the IC 814 hijacking.
It has been reported that Punjab Police wanted the Central government’s permission for its commandos, trained to carry out counter-terror operations, to take measures and free the hostages. The Centre wanted the elite National Security Guard (NSG) commandos to be flown to Amritsar and carry out the rescue operation. That didn’t materialise and the plane was forced off Amritsar after staying there for 55 long minutes for refuelling. The hijackers became suspicious and menacing.
It is said that India’s initial response was delayed, and even the Prime Minister was briefed about the hijacking after an hour.
The hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 is now a Netflix series, ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, directed by Anubhav Sinha. It stars Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Varma, and Pankaj Kapur. The series is an adaption of Captain Devi Sharan’s book ‘Flight into Fear’, published in 2000.
Scheduled to land at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, IC 814 was hijacked just 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport.
Captain Devi Sharan, was forced to divert the plane to Lahore, Pakistan. But the Pakistani authorities denied permission to land. Short on fuel, the flight landed in Amritsar. The Indian authorities tried their best to stall the take-off from Amritsar, but the hijackers coerced the pilot to take off. Authorities in Pakistan were reluctant to let the hijacked plane land, and they even switched off all lights and other navigational facilities at the airport.
But severely low on fuel, Captain Sharan was only allowed to land to refuel. Then, the hijackers commandeered the flight to Dubai. After initial denial of landing rights, permission to land came for Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE, where 27 passengers and the body of 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, who had been killed by one of the hijackers, Zahoor Mistry, were released.
The remaining passengers would be held hostage for the next six days and spend tense moments under the shadow of guns.
The plane was eventually flown to Kandahar, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The Taliban regime wasn’t recognised by India.
The families asked for the release of their loved ones and even protested for it.
This even as the nascent TV media amped up the demands of the families, their tears, adding to the pressure on the Vajpayee government.
During this period, the Vajpayee government engaged in complex negotiations with the hijackers.
The hijackers demanded the release of 36 prisoners and a ransom of $200 million in cash.
“For us, it was one of the most difficult assignments in recent times. We were expected to develop a rapport with the Taliban, with whom we hardly had any communication, let alone a relationship,” a senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told India Today magazine in 2000.
The five hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, and Shakir, members of the Pakistan-based Islamist terror group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM).
Despite the initial reluctance, the Indian government negotiated with the hijackers of IC 814, with the Taliban acting as mediators. The negotiations resulted in the release of three key terrorists: Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, in exchange for the hostages.
Then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh flew to Afghanistan on the evening of December 30 to oversee the exchange and ensure the safe return of the Indians.
Finally, all the remaining 155 passengers and crew members were released. The passengers of IC 814 returned home on a special flight after seven harrowing days.
Captain Devi Sharan also came back to India, filled with emotions of relief. He penned his version of the entire IC 814 hijacking story, which has now been turned into the Netflix series.
The released terrorists later masterminded deadly terror attacks.
Masood Azhar founded Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was behind the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and also the 2019 Pulwama attack, in which 40 security personnel were killed. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Ajit Doval, then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief and a key member of the negotiating team, called the event a “diplomatic failure” and a “bloody disgrace” for India. Doval is now the National Security Advisor (NSA) of India.
The BJP faced severe backlash due to its handling of the crisis. It was criticised for allowing the flight to leave Amritsar and the overall management of the crisis. The kneeling before the hijackers painted a totally contrasting picture coming within months of the victory in the Kargil War against Pakistan. On December 31, India took a collective sigh of relief as all the passengers returned to their families.
