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‘Upon my belly sat the saw of fear,’ wrote Carl Shapiro in one of his poems. One can’t think of a more startling image. From Christmas eve to the new year, the sow of fear sat on the nation’s belly, as it morbidly watched the goings-on at the Kandahar airport and hoped that the IC-814 flight would not come to greater harm. And the thought that this is not a one-time affair and events like this will keep repeating is more galling.
At the end of it all, one can’t easily fathom the reaction of the ‘experts’. Day after day they talked nonstop on those nonstop TV channels without knowing a thing about what was actually happening in Lahore or Dubai or Kandahar. They have only one pistol among them, said one expert! Assault the plane, exhorted another!! Quite unmindful of the ‘hostile’ airspace of two countries that lay between desire and consummation.
After the ‘exchange’ - 150-odd against three terrorists there was an avalanche of criticism, forgetting that tougher nations than India have had to release prisoners. Nowhere is the ISI stronger than in Kandahar. The entire Pakistani consulate there is manned by the ISI staff. Even the drafting of Afghan government documents is done by the ISI since the Taliban are not too au fait with English. (Pakistan similarly ‘drafts’ everything for the Organisation of Islamic Conference, incidentally.) The Afghans run a coalition government in Kandahar, if not the entire country - a coalition of the Taliban and the ISI.
Pakistan will have to realise that one can’t emerge clean from something as messy as a hijack, and especially one that has involved killing. Islamabad is asking for proof. That itself is bit of an admission. From the time its former officer at the Kathmandu embassy took the arms in his bag into the airport, the Pak hand is fairly evident. Pakistan refused to take wen the sick and women and children at the Lahore airport, or possibly the tragedy of Rupin Katyal could have been averted, and with elementary medical treatment, he could have been saved. At the Kathmandu airport, a Pakistani chief immigration officer, formerly posted in Kathmandu, utilised the services of a first secretary to smuggle in the arms. The entire operation was planned for the rescue of the Pakistani, Masood Azhar. Masood Azhar and Sajjad Afghani had been sent to Kashmir in 1993 to see that the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen could be brought together under one umbrella organisation called Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA). Sajjad Afghani was supposed to lead this combined outfit in India.
The initial demand of the Pakistani hijackers was only for Masood Azhar, till it was jacked up, obviously at the instance of their Pakistani mentors. It is doubtful if the hijackers who spoke chaste Urdu and did not know a word of Kashmiri, knew the name of Mustaq Zargar Lutrum even.
The snapshots released by the government and the confessions of the Harkat-ul-Ansar module smashed in Bombay leave no room for any doubt about the identity of the hijackers or the Pakistani hand behind it. Ever since Parvez Musharraf has taken over, all the militant factions have been made to deliver. Otherwise, the cash pipeline can always be choked by the Pakistanis. That accounts for all the daredevilry and the stepped-up militancy in the valley.
A word about the Taliban. From all accounts, the hijackers started brandishing many more arms once they were in Kandahar. From two pistols, they started brandishing four and their two hand-grenades got multiplied into six. These arms had not been seen either in Dubai or in Lahore. Masood Azhar received a big hug from the Taliban civil aviation minister. Five bags belonging to the hijackers which were unloaded from the forward hold of the aircraft were suspected of containing explosives. The bags were shown to the hijackers as they sat in their get-away vehicle, flashing a rotary red light on top, and on an indication from the hijackers, were removed from the hold. All this tells its own tale.
We are now thinking in terms of sky marshals. They will do us no good. I am not sure if they can be that well-trained to realise what would happen to the plane if they shoot a hijacker and the bullet goes through the body of the aircraft. Knowing the risks, it would be quite unlikely for a sky marshal to open fire on a hijacker, at least while the aircraft is flying. Thus, if he takes no action, he will be penalised for cowardice. If he is trigger-happy, he could lead everyone to his or her doom. One sure way of making an aircraft hijack-proof would be to allow no hand baggage at all. No hand bags for ladies and no brief cases. Perhaps you could let someone carry a book. Even newspapers should be provided within the aircraft. Then, the hijacker would have to resort to the Mario Puzo trick of getting someone to leave weapons in the aircraft toilet!
One needs to reiterate that the bargain we have got is the best under the circumstances. People are talking today about the security forces being demoralised. I don’t believe a word of it. The army fought tooth and nail to get back even dead bodies lying on remote hilltops under heavy enemy fire. I refuse to believe that it would have been good for their morale if 150 passengers were blown up. In political theory, the state has already become a dirty word. If it showed concern for its 150 citizens, no one has the right to criticise it. If the hijackers could treat their 150 hostages as sacrificial lambs, the state certainly was not duty-bound to follow suit!
(The author was in the
IPS.)
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