New Delhi: Success seems to be eluding the
US' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the hijacking of
the Indian Airlines plane in 1999 as even after a decade the
American probe agency has not been able to chargesheet any
accused who are roaming freely in Pakistan.
Moreover, the FBI, which entered into cooperation with
the CBI in 1999 to jointly crack the case, did not hand over a
single document collected by American forces from a Kandahar
house despite repeated reminders by the Indian probe agency,
official sources said.
The FBI had registered a case in connection with the
hijacking of an IC-814 plane to Kandahar on Christmas eve in
1999 on the basis of a complaint by a US passenger -- Jeanne
Moore -- who was aboard the ill-fated aircraft.
The case, which saw the two probe agencies -- CBI and
FBI -- working together for the first time has also not seen a
single chargesheet being filed by the American investigators
despite having unfettered access and influence in Pakistan,
sources in the CBI said.
FBI had registered a case after examining Moore, who had
spelt the word "coffin" for the hijackers when they made a
list of demands to the Indian government.
A US Embassy spokesperson here said it was a policy not
to make any comment on a case in which investigations were
still going on.
The US allied forces had found several documentary
evidence while fighting the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks.
The CBI had pressed for the evidence but those were never
shared, said a CBI official who was associated with the case.
The CBI officials said they had pressed for questioning
of some of the captured Taliban leaders including the then
Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who is understood to
have played a key role in the criminal conspiracy during
negotiations.
However, the same was provided by the FBI but in a
limited way and Muttawakil could not even be counter
questioned by the two-member CBI team which had visited Kabul,
the officials said.
Former CBI Director Vijay Shanker had raised the issue
last year with the FBI and conveyed to them that they were not
doing enough to ensure the capture of the main accused in the
hijacking of flight IC-814.
India had filed a chargesheet against 10 people including
five hijackers and two accomplices in Pakistan besides Abdul
Latif, Yusuf Nepali and Dilip Kumar Bhujel who were handed
down life imprisonment by a court last year.
The CBI has also secured an Interpol Red Corner notice
against the hijackers -- Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi,
Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter Sayed and Shakir and accomplices
Yusuf Azhar and Abdul Rauf, who played a key role in executing
the hijacking in 1999. All the hijackers are in Pakistan, the
sources said.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 18:56