Indian Airlines Flight 814: Biggest highjack from Nepal

The hijack of India Airlines Flight 814 (also known as IC 814) started on Christmas Eve of 1999 and ended the day before the turn of the millenium, making it the longest highjacking in Indian history. While some passengers were beaten, one was stabbed to death. The flight had taken off from Nepal – a nation with many dangerous airports – the most notorious of them all being Lukla Airport.

IC 814 had taken off from Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) – the same airport where the Pakistan Airlines Flight 268 (which eventually crashed marking the deadliest crash in Nepal’s history) was approaching. After the highjacking, Indian Airlines suspended its flights to/from TIA, only to resume services half a year later. But how did the highjacking take place, and how did it pan out? Let’s find out.

Sketches of the biggest aircraft highjack from Nepal

On December 24, 1999, at 4 PM, Indian Airlines flight IC814 was preparing for takeoff from Tribhuvan Airport to Delhi. The aircraft had 178 passengers and 11 crew members. In economy class, seats 3A and 2B, and in business class, seats 6B, 19G, and 23G, there were five Indian passengers. These five individuals had gathered at the Central Zoo in Nepal 11 days earlier; at that time, they were Pakistani residents and had given each other code names: Red Cap/Chief, Burger, Doctor, Bhola, and Shankar.

The plane took off at 4:05 PM, and after a while “Chief” entered the cockpit with a hand grenade and a revolver, capturing the pilots. The five passengers hijacked the aircraft, marking Nepal’s first (and the biggest) hijacking, and putting the lives of the passengers in danger.

The background to Nepal’s first highjack

Ten years before the highjack of IC 814 (i.e., in 1989), Kashmir separatist militants kidnapped Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of the Indian Home Minister, in Srinagar. They demanded the Indian government release five prisoners in exchange for her safe return. The government agreed easily due to the minister’s daughter’s high-profile status. This incident led the kidnappers to realize that if they targeted high-profile individuals, they could secure the release of their associates.

The three terrorists of interest who were captured by the Indian forces were:

• Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (captured in 1992)
• Mohammad Masood Azhar (captured in 1994)
• Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was connected with Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. He was also directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. The hijacking of IC814 occurred because the terrorists wanted the Indian government to release these three individuals.

The plan 

In September 1999, before the hijacking, a group of people gathered in a rented house in Bangladesh to plan something secret. The leader of this group was Ibrahim Athar, the same person who later entered the cockpit of the aircraft. The other four members were also present. Ibrahim Athar had been in contact with someone in Kathmandu. Passengers flying from Nepal to India could only use a national ID card, and they believed they could fly as Indian passengers, hijack the plane, and secure the release of three terrorists.

During the meeting in Bangladesh, an Indian man named Abdul Latif was also present. He returned to India to create fake documents for the five terrorists – a task that took him two months to complete. They also needed weapons, and a Nepalese named Yusuf Nepali helped them acquire them. One of the hijackers, known as Doctor, had the real name Shahid Akhtar Sayeed. Both Yusuf and Shahid traveled to Kalimpong, India, to buy weapons from Dilip Kumar Bhujel. The weapons are :

• 3 revolvers 
• 3 granades 

Now that they had fake documents and the necessary weapons, they arrived in Nepal from different locations. On November 1, the Chief and Abdul Latif traveled from Mumbai to Kolkata by aircraft, then took a train from Kolkata to Siliguri, and finally a bus to Kathmandu. A month later, Abdul Latif and Shankar traveled to Gorakhpur by train and then took a bus to Kathmandu. They all gathered at the Central Zoo in Kathmandu. It was here that they determined what code names would be used during the highjacking. 

Abdul Latif wanted to join the team, but it was decided that someone needed to remain behind to complete the mission in case they got caught. They planned to hijack the plane on December 27, but Abdul Latif informed the Chief that they needed to act on December 24, just before Christmas, and they hijacked the plane.

The hijack  

After hijacking the aircraft, the terrorists ordered the pilot to fly west, intending to exit Indian airspace. They initially requested to land in Lahore, but the pilot refused, and the flight was redirected to Amritsar for refueling. The plane remained in Amritsar for 40-45 minutes, during which Indian forces attempted to recover the aircraft. However, the terrorists sensed something was wrong, did not refuel the plane, and took off, landing in Lahore.

After refueling in Lahore, the terrorists began flying toward the Middle East, but no country granted them landing permits. Eventually, Dubai provided landing permission, but the Dubai government stipulated that no Indian rescue operation could take place.

In Dubai, the terrorists released 26 passengers, and the aircraft took off again. On December 26, at 6 AM, the aircraft landed in Afghanistan, where negotiations between the Indian government and the hijackers began and continued for the next three days.

• The hijackers initially demanded the release of 26 terrorists in jail and $200 million. After negotiations, they agreed to release only three terrorists, the same individuals mentioned earlier.

At that time, the Taliban was ruling Afghanistan and the Indian government posited that the Taliban was on the side of the hijackers. After negotiations, India agreed to release three terrorists to Afghanistan. The released terrorists, alongside the five hijackers, eventually entered Pakistan.

However, Abdul Latif was arrested by the Indian government. On December 29, while negotiations were ongoing, Pakistani Abdul Rauf called Abdul Latif and warned him to inform the BBC that if India did not fulfill its demands, they would blow up the plane. This call was traced by the Indian government, leading to the arrest of both men and the identification of the five hijackers.

How were the passengers treated during the highjack of IC 814? 

During the hijacking, the hijackers killed one person, Rubin Katyal, after stabbing him in the neck. They held the other passengers on the plane for a number of days. Among the passengers was a Nepali named Sanjay Dhital, who worked for the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia and ran a clinic in Afghanistan. Initially, he assessed that the highjack would be a case of a small robbery.

According to Sanjay, the terrorists treated the other passengers well, and that he had even met the Chief in the cockpit. Sanjay was quoted in the popular Nepali YouTube channel, the Nepali Comment, and said:

” To the fact that one person was stabbed, there’s no doubt. However, with other’s they weren’t as cruel as one would assume. I remember that there were a lot of newly wedded ones in the flight. If the terrorists wanted to, they could have done anything with them but that was not the case….I went inside the cockpit and met the chief. The Chief asked me “How are things?”. Before I could reply, he himself said, “Things are obviously bad”. After that, I just bowed down my head, and simply nodded to everything”

A popular YouTuber in India, Dhruv Raathee, even said that the highjacker with alias Burger had even won the passengers’ hearts with his unique ability to sing and tell jokes – something one would no normally associate with

How do the weapons get through TIA Airport ?

Various writings note that airport security in Nepal is very lax, making it easy for terrorists to bring weapons onto an aircraft. During their planning meetings, they decided that the Chief would go through the security check first, and if he passed, he would signal to the other four. Due to the weak security, they were able to board the plane without difficulty.

Notorious serial killer and fraudster Charles Sobhraj once said “he could smuggle an elephant through Nepal’s customs”. Even after a hundred-million-dollar makeover and a Nepali life sentence later, the quote still proves relevant for Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

The geopolitical dimesion to IC 814

Various conspiracy theories have surrounded the IC-814 hijacking in 1999, particularly regarding Pakistan’s involvement. LK Advani, a prominent Indian politician, made statements suggesting that the hijacking was part of a larger strategy by Pakistan to destabilize India, emphasizing the complexities of Indo-Pak relations during that period. he talked about three dimensions involving the highjacking: 

• Drug trafficking 
• Counter feed currency 
• Cross border Terriosm 

The fake Indian currency was found with Pakistan’s embassy worker, reported Rediff: 

“Saboor, an upper division clerk in the Pakistan embassy who was strangely provided a diplomatic vehicle and respected even by his senior officers, was arrested last Sunday with crisp 500 rupee notes at the end of a laborious investigation by the Kathmandu police. Fake currency worth Rs 20 million was recovered from his residence by the Valley Crime Investigation Department. Saboor, a key agent of Pakistan’s ISI, has been thrown out of Nepal, despite heavy pressure from Pakistan. “

In 1998, Yakir Singh was arrested with 20 kg of explosive RDX. After the investigation, Yakir revealed that Mohammed Arshad Cheema, the secretary of Pakistan’s embassy, was the supplier. In 2001, Singh was arrested again with 16 kg of RDX and was subsequently expelled from Nepal.

A week after the highjacking of IC814, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs released a report. According to it, a Pakistan embassy official car had pulled up at Tribhuvan airport. Among the car’s passengers were Mohammed Arshad Cheema, his deputy Zia Ansari, and Nepali citizen Abdul Rias Khan. Airport officials noticed that Cheema, the first secretary, carried a briefcase into the departure concourse. The airport officials left the briefcase unchecked because Cheema and his associates used their diplomatic immunity to avoid being frisked or searched. One of the Pakistani officials handed the briefcase to a person who later became identified as one of the hijackers of IC 814.

This incident led India to directly blame Pakistan six months later, in June 2000. India Today magazine published an article titled “Pakistan’s Anti-India Activities in Nepal,” which detailed how Pakistan was allegedly using Nepal to attack India. The report highlighted various media houses and businessmen, but Nepali media dismissed the claims as completely baseless.

Aftermath 

Despite the report not being official, the Nepalese government was under pressure at the time. After the hijacking, authorities halted flight services to India, and India demanded that they not resume until security improved and Indian forces were deployed at Tribhuvan International Airport. The Nepalese government denied this request, but India remained unwilling to resume flights until it met its demands.

In response, the Nepalese government proposed an interesting solution: while they would not allow Indian forces in the departure area, they would permit Indian security forces to check baggage at a separate location. Following this arrangement, there have been no recorded hijackings since. After the incident, TIA also installed a new X-ray machine.