New Delhi: Pressure from the government and
hysteria back home by relatives of passengers prevented
negotiators to force the hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane
to scale down their demand to release just one terrorist, says
A K Doval, India`s Chief negotiator.
Ten years after the traumatic passengers were released
after a costly exchange of three dreaded terrorists on New
Year eve, Doval, a former IB chief, says demands may have been
reduced to release of just one terrorist if negotiators had
got some more time.
Pressure was building from the government to quickly
secure the release of passengers and finish the task before
the clock struck midnight heralding the new millennium, he
said.
"That was something that was adding pressure on us ki ab
app key paas 12 ghante bache hain (you have 12 hours left)...
the pressure was from the people. The pressure from the people
was on the government, the pressure from the government would
be transmitted to the negotiators and they were telling the
people are getting restless," 64-year-old Doval told a news agency here.
The intelligence agencies negotiated with the terrorists
for seven days under tremendous domestic pressure to secure
the release of passengers.
The hijack crisis ended after three dreaded terrorists
--Maulana Masood Azhar, who later founded Jaish-e-Mohammed,
Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh--were
released in exchange for the lives of 149 passengers and a
15-member crew of the plane.
Many of the terror attacks in the country including the
2001 Parliament strike have been linked to the three freed
terrorists.
"If the government was not under pressure, they would
have said boys take your time, you are doing a good job...If
you want, at your judgement close it, not at our judgement. I
am
not telling that we could have succeeded but may be we have
brought it to two, it could have become one (terrorist) there
was a possibility," Doval said.
He recalled the episode as an "opportunity lost" for
India. "Opportunity lost...from my personal angle as an
operational man, I think an opportunity lost.... it`s not only
at Kandahar but right from the very beginning from Nepal to
this thing," he said.
The government was constantly asking us to do something
and secure the release of the weary passengers, he said.
"New millennium is starting. What are you fellows doing?
ap log kuch kariye (do something). Isko jitne mein hota hai
kariye. Passengers ko wapas laeiye (bring back passengers),"
said Doval recalling a conversation with authorities in Delhi
Doval felt the government of the day should not have
been obsessed with symbolic event like start of a new
millennium.
"Hazaar saal baad phir aajayega. Koi baat nahin lekin we
will try to sort out with. So we were trying to gain time both
from the terrorists and also from the public but it is a
public opinion which was putting the pressure on top of it,"
he said.
He said India could have held on for more time because
the hijackers, though behaving rudely, were reducing their
demands but refused to divulge messages that he was getting
from the government in New Delhi.
"My personal feeling about this I think we should have
held on for some more time...I think so because they were
coming down on their demands," Doval said.
Doval said the the hysteria kicked up home on the
prolonged crisis lent urgency to seek the release of the
passengers and the crew.
"The public pressure, the relatives` pressure, the
processions, the TV, the media, the headlines and others put
the pressure on the negotiators to think that this time we
will finish it," the Kerala-cadre IPS officer said of every
stage of the negotiations with the hijackers.
Doval said to bring down demands for the release of
terrorists from 36 to three was a "stupendous task".
"110 hours of talks...we were talking our lungs out to
explain it to them and trying to see in what way, by what
tactics, by what method we could sort out the thing," he said.
The terrorists were also cashing in on the public
pressure that was building in India, he added.
"The biggest argument that they (terrorists) were
telling was that you have got no option but to consider our
demand. Look at your TV. We could not see it but they could
see it because the (Pakistan) ISI chaps had been telling them
what was happening on the streets and outside PM`s house," he
said.
PTI
