September 99 letters to editor
12/27/99
Dear Sir,
The hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 now in Kandahar, Afghanistan (in Taliban country) are Pakistanis.
Their identities are:
These 6 hijackers have been holding more than 150 Indian nationals hostage along with 1 Japanese, 1 American, 1 Belgium national, 1 French, and 6 Nepali.
The International communty should under the aegis of the UNO pressurize Pakistan into exercising its hold and modify its directions to the hijackers to release the innocent people.
The hijackers hve been demanding the release of a Pakistani Cleric in Indian prison, Maulana Masood Akhtar, who is also the General Secretary of the Harkarul Ansar, the extremist group responsible for the killing of 4 western tourists to India in 1994-95. There have been numerous kidnappings, and killing of hostages both Indian and non-Indians for the release of Maulana Masood Akhtar, who is one of the most dreaded terrorists in Indian prisons, as per Indian records.
In this muslim holy month of Ramadan, such hijackings, and the subsequent killing by knife of the newly married Rupin Katiyal (aged 25), thereby making his 20 year old bride (Rachna Katiyal) a widow only 21 days after their marriage, is totally unislamic and deserves to be condemned from the world over.
Vishal Sharma
Mumbai, India
12/29/99
This mail is the say how US media in general reports about the Indian Airlines Hijacking details. Providing known, fair details about this unfortunate drama will put the whole even in proper perspective the listener/readers mind.
1. While it reports Smuggling suspect Ahmed Ressam it always suffixes it with "a 32-year-old Algerian". It avoids facts established based on their boarding records.
a) 4 Pakistani( Ahmed Shaikh, Ibrahim Mistry, S A Qazi and Saeed Akhtar Saqid) 1.Napali( Gopal Tamrakar)
b) All 4 Pakistani arrived Katmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport from Pakistan by PIA and boarded IC814 with out leaving the lounge and hence without going through he security check
2. It reports hijacker demand Maulana Masood Azhar and "islamic cleric". It avoids a) He is the "secretary general" and 'spiritual leader' FOR the 'Harkat-ul Ansar'
b) 'Harkat-ul Ansar' is a listed in list of USA's terrorist outfits
c) This is the THIRD attempt to free this 'cleric'. The two previous attempts were kidnappings of Westerners. In the first case, the victims were released, but in the second case in 1995, one victim escaped, one was beheaded and the remaining four tourists -- an American, two Britons and one German -- are still missing and presumed dead.
Reporting this "established facts" will give clear clue as to why this drama is happening, who could be behind it. It would also through light on India's dilemma to bendingfor this repeating hijacking drama.
Venkat Sellappan
Bloomington Il
12/30/99
An Indian Airlines aircraft on a routine flight from Kathmandu (Nepal) to New Delhi on Friday December 24, was hijacked and, after a traumatic journey that took it to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, is currently in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan since the early hours of Saturday December 25, where over 160 passengers and crew members continue to remain hostage in rapidly deteriorating conditions. A team of officials from India is presently negotiating with the hijackers in Kandahar in order to secure the safe and speedy release of all the hostages.
The hijackers have demanded the release from jail in India of Mohammad Masood Azhar, whom sections of the international media have euphemistically described as an Islamic cleric from Pakistan, but who is in fact the General Secretary and ideologue of the Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), an organization based in Pakistan which was in October 1997 designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States Department of State. The HUM was re-designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department in its latest list released on October 8, 1999. Azhar is an Islamic cleric only in the sense that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rehman of the World Trade Center bombing notoriety was also said to be one.
In its Background Information on Foreign Terrorist Organizations released on October 8 1999, the Office of Counter terrorism of the US Department of State has described the Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a.k.a. Harakat-ul-Ansar, HUA, Al Hadid, Al Hadith, Al Faran as an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan whose leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil has been linked to Bin Laden and signed his fatwa in February 1998, calling for attacks on US and Western interests. Khalil, who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Harakat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami International (HUJI), broke away from the parent organization in 1985 to form a separate group Harakat-ul-Mujahideen. There were subsequent attempts to re-unite the two breakaway factions, and the merged group came to be known as the Harakat-ul-Ansar. It changed its name to Harakat-ul-Mujahideen in 1997 after it was designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Masood Azhar, the General Secretary of the organization, who hails from Bahawalpur in Pakistan, entered the state of Jammu & Kashmir in India in January 1994 on a false Portuguese passport and was arrested by the Indian police the following month because of his involvement in terrorist activities.
There have been several earlier attempts by the HUM to secure the release of Masood Azhar by resorting to abduction as a bargaining tool. Two British nationals were kidnapped on June 6, 1994 at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir. Another group of three British and one American citizen was abducted in Delhi in September the same year. Six foreign tourists, including two American nationals, were kidnapped again at Pahalgam in July 1995. One of the hostages, John Childs (a citizen of the USA) escaped, another (a Norwegian national) was beheaded by the Harakat, and four others, including an American national, are still missing. The recent hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft is the most brazen terrorist attempt yet by the HUM to secure the release of its General Secretary Masood Azhar.
The United States Government has condemned in the strongest terms the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft and the holding of 160 passengers as hostages. The US President has long since warned that the greatest threat to the free world in the new millennium will come from international terrorism. This ordeal once again strongly indicates that the United States and India must forge closer ties on every level and particularly in combating terrorism. There is an IMMEDIATE need for the international community, particularly the US, to rally as one to address the problem and to build a concerted international strategy for preempting and dealing with such terrorist strikes in the future.
Please do your best to address this international threat of Islamic terrorism.
Regards,
Sudhir Malhotra
Chicago IL