Taliban Islamic militia commandos head towards the hijacked Indian Airlines plane at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan, December 30, 1999.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- Capt S Rajender Kumar was the Co-Pilot of Flight IC-814 that was hijacked by terrorists in 1999.
- The hijackers claimed they had their passports made in Mumbai and also mentioned about AK-47s and other weapons onboard, he said.
- The ordeal lasted for seven excruciating days, during which one hostage was killed and another brutally injured.
New Delhi: The terrorists who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 claimed that they had 'AK-47s' and passports 'made in Mumbai', a co-pilot, who flew the ill-flated flight in 1999, told Times Now. The flight, carrying 176 passengers was hijacked by five terrorists from Nepal airport and flown to Kandahar in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The ordeal lasted for seven excruciating days, during which one hostage was killed and another brutally injured.
The flight was hijacked shortly after it took off from Kathmandu, Capt S Rajender Kumar, the Co-Pilot of Flight IC-814, told Times Now.
The hijackers claimed they had their passports made in Mumbai and also mentioned about AK-47s and other weapons onboard, he said.
"We were unsure whether the hijackers were Pakistanis or Indians, but the names used in the series— 'Burger', 'Chief', 'Bhola', 'Shankar', and 'Doctor'— were not their actual names," he said.
'Hijackers Assaulted Flight Engineer Inside Cockpit, Leaving Him Unconscious'
The terrorists were violent and hit a Flight Engineer inside the cockpit, leaving him unconsciousness for a few seconds.
"There was a lot of violence in the cockpit; my father was hit by the hijackers and lost consciousness for a few seconds. The scene depicted in the series was quite different from what actually happened," Aparna Jaggia Kumar, daughter Of Late Anil Kumar Jaggia, IC 814 Flight Engineer, told Times Now.
The passengers of the hijacked plane were asked to convert to Islam and ordered to play 'Antakshari' by another terrorist while the hijackers negotiated with the Indian government for the release of three dreaded terrorists: Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.
The speeches calling the passengers to convert were delivered by the most brutal of the five hijackers, Shakir, who was codenamed 'Doctor'. Shakir slit the throat of Rupin Katyal, the passenger who lost his life in the 1999 hostage crisis
The Kandhar hijacking is back in news after the recent web series on Netflix - IC814: The Kandahar Hijack - was released on August 29. A section of viewers have said that series have misrepresented historical events.
The Centre also expressed strong disapproval of the depiction of certain elements in the web series after which the series has been updated to include the real names and code names of the hijackers.
The real names of the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny, Ahmad Qazi, Zahoor Mistry and Shakir.
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