Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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<strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
militant leaders from Indian prisons. Some of the hooded hijackers<br />
would climb down occasionally to receive supplies or talk to officials.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Taliban officials were visibly warm towards them.<br />
Interestingly, the Taliban leaders, who in the past had scorned<br />
foreign journalists and deemed photography as un-<strong>Islam</strong>ic, were overly<br />
amiable, providing them with facilities. <strong>The</strong>re were no restrictions on<br />
TV cameras and photography. <strong>The</strong> conservative <strong>Islam</strong>ic administration<br />
appeared extremely keen to have international publicity for the event.<br />
Scores of media persons from the world over had descended on the<br />
spiritual headquarters of the regime as the hijacking drama unfolded.<br />
<strong>The</strong> eve of the new century brought an end to the hostages’ eightday<br />
ordeal when the Indian Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, arrived<br />
with the three men whose freedom was demanded by the hijackers.<br />
Among them was a short, stocky man with an unkempt black beard.<br />
A former leader of HuM, Masood Azhar was captured by the Indian<br />
authorities in 1994 and held in prison on terrorism charges. Along<br />
with him was a tall heavily built young man. A <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i-born British<br />
national, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had been detained in Delhi’s<br />
high security Tihar prison for many years on charges of kidnapping<br />
three foreign tourists.<br />
<strong>The</strong> hijackers stepped down triumphantly from flight IC 814, their<br />
faces still covered, as Indian officials handed over the freed militants<br />
to the Taliban authorities. Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the suave<br />
Foreign Minister of the Taliban regime, won international praise for<br />
his ‘deft handling’ of the hijacking episode. But the real-life drama<br />
was taking place at the far end of the tarmac. <strong>The</strong> freed militants were<br />
warmly greeted by Mullah Akhtar Usmani, the chief of Taliban forces<br />
in Kandahar, and dozens of other senior officials of the fundamentalist<br />
regime. <strong>The</strong>y were joined by two of the hijackers, one wearing a<br />
western suit and the other in safari dress. ‘Are you satisfied now?’ a<br />
smiling Mullah Usmani asked the two men. ‘Indeed,’ replied one of<br />
them excitedly. <strong>The</strong>y were whisked away in a window-blackened<br />
vehicle to an unknown destination. <strong>The</strong> three other hijackers also<br />
vanished from the scene. 32<br />
‘Everything had gone amazingly smoothly due to the Taliban’s<br />
excellent political acumen and superb handling of the situation,’ Azhar<br />
later recalled. It was the first time that a <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i-based militant group<br />
had successfully used hijacking as an instrument of terror. <strong>The</strong> wellplanned<br />
action was carried out by HuM: a group similar to LeT, but<br />
which drew its recruits from less well-educated, unemployed youth,