Indian negotiators arrive to talk with hijackers

Angry relatives storm into a press conference on Monday

December 27, 1999
Web posted at: 9:40 p.m. HKT (1340 GMT)

In this story: Ordeal began Friday Conditions on plane deteriorating Hijackers demand release of Islamic leader from India Pakistan accuses India of hijacking RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A high-level team of Indian negotiators arrived in Afghanistan on Monday in response to an ultimatum set by five hijackers who seized an Indian Airlines jet last week.

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The plane carrying the negotiators departed New Delhi shortly after 2:30 p.m. (1000 GMT), but was forced to return because of a problem with its air brakes. It took off again about an hour after landing.

India's Cabinet scheduled a meeting for early Monday evening to discuss the situation.

Earlier Monday, a deadline set by the hijackers passed without bloodshed as the plane's captors held off on their threat to begin killing those on board the plane. There are 160 passengers and crew on board the plane.

Troops of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban surrounded the seized plane as the earlier deadline approached at 12:40 p.m. (0810 GMT), warning they would storm the plane if the threat were carried out.

The seven-member Indian negotiating team and its support staff took off in an Airbus A320 passenger plane for Kandahar. Airport officials said there were also two doctors, one nurse, medical supplies and a crew of 13. The plane was also carrying a spare part for the hijacked aircraft, which had developed a technical problem.

"We hope this means that there will be no deadline, and that the hijackers will wait for the delegation to come here," Tayyab Aga, a Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone interview.

Ordeal began Friday

Passengers and crew have been held hostage since Friday, when the hijackers seized the Airbus A300 shortly after it took off on a Katmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi flight.

India has ordered a negotiating team to Afghanistan to talk with the hijackers, Singh said Monday

After a long, zigzagging course to the Middle East and back again -- with stops in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates -- the plane landed in Kandahar, where it has remained since Saturday morning.

One passenger has been killed during the tense ordeal -- a 25-year-old Indian man on his honeymoon who was stabbed to death for disobeying the hijackers' orders to wear a blindfold.

Rippan Katyal, 25, was returning with his wife from their honeymoon in Nepal. Hundreds of relatives and friends gathered in the Indian capital to mourn Katyal's death Sunday.

The hijackers have refused a Taliban request that the widow of the man who was stabbed to death be released.

The hijackers have not released any hostages since allowing a man off the plane on Sunday for health problems related to diabetes. He was the first passenger allowed off the plane since 26 passengers, some injured, were released Saturday at an air base near Dubai during a brief stop before the plane flew to Kandahar.

Conditions on plane deteriorating

Meanwhile, concern about conditions aboard the plane was growing. Officials of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban delivered food -- bread and tea for breakfast -- to the hostages Monday, and reported a terrible smell on the jet.

The Airbus was fueled for takeoff and its engines were still running Monday, but it was leaking oil. Inside the jet, conditions were reportedly getting worse as the standoff dragged into a fourth day.

"They have three toilet cubicles between all of the (passengers) and, as always with these cases, the longer things go on, the worse they are for everyone because people get very nervous," a Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday.

Hijackers demand release of Islamic leader from India

India's Cabinet met late Sunday to discuss ways of ending the standoff, but the government ministers left with few answers.

"Our policy is not to negotiate with the terrorists, if this kind of situation holds," India's ambassador to the United States, Naresh Chandra, told CNN late Sunday. He said India would not cower to the terrorists.

The Indian news agency PTI said the hijackers were three Kashmiris, one Afghan and one Nepalese. They have demanded the release of Pakistani religious leader Maulana Masood Azhar and other Islamic militants from Indian jails: But Azhar was quoted on Monday as saying he did not wish to win his freedom through such means.

India sent one of its officials, based in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, to Kandahar to assess the situation. But the official was not given a mandate to negotiate with the hijackers.

India's national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, said New Delhi was consulting with other nations -- including the United States, France, Japan, Italy, Spain and Switzerland -- where the hostages are from.

Meanwhile, anguished relatives of the hostages stormed into Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's press conference on Sunday, weeping and shouting demands that the government make the swap.

"It is not a yes-and-no answer to which I can address myself," Singh told reporters.

"The government's priority remains the earliest termination of this hijacking, and the earliest return of the passengers, crew and aircraft."

Pakistan accuses India of hijacking

Pakistan, in a tit-for-tat exchange, accused India of staging the hijacking to embarrass its new military government. A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that an Indian intelligence agent was aboard the hijacked plane, but declined to give any details.

Earlier, Indian national security adviser K. Subramanium suggested the hijackers may be taking revenge for setbacks in disputed Kashmir earlier this year.

Earlier this year, an 11-week Indian military campaign pushed back hundreds of Pakistan-based Islamic guerrillas who had intruded into the mountainous Kargil region in northernmost Kashmir.

New Delhi Bureau Chief Satinder Bindra, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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