With the Kandahar hijacking episode still fresh in their several passengers of the hijacked Alliance Air flight expressed anguish and disgust over government attributing the incident to a false alarm.
This is not the way to test how the security apparatus functions. If real hijack takes place, what will happen, said an angry K Jain, a passenger of CD-7444 flight from Mumbai to Delhi, alighting from the aircraft after nearly a four hour captivity. While some passengers felt that the entire exercise was mock, a few others termed it as hundred per cent real hijack but none of them claimed to have seen the hijackers.
“We were told by some commandos that we are safe now,” said Darshan Singh, another passenger, adding “We were also conveyed that two of the hijackers had been nabbed.” However, chaos and confusion reigned supreme at the Delhi's Palam Airport which witnessed a four hour long hijack drama and some of the anxious relatives were seen having a verbal duel with senior police officials arguing about the black out of the news.
Even though the Civil Avaition Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said that the entire episode was a false alarm, an Alliance Air official, refusing to be identified, claimed It was real hijack and the elite national security gaurd commandos entered the aircraft through the landing gear into the cockpit and nabbed the two hijackers. Bureau Report