India Flight Hijacked; All 203 Aboard Are Reportedly Safe
A man claiming to have explosives taped to his body hijacked a domestic Indian Airlines flight today carrying 203 people and ordered it to fly to Pakistan.
The hijacker approached the captain of the Airbus 300 as it took off from New Delhi and ordered him to fly to the Pakistani city of Lahore, United News of India reported.
Kalpana Chaudhary, an airline spokeswoman, said Pakistan denied permission for the plane to land in Lahore. The plane then landed in Amritsar, a city 30 miles from Lahore in India’s northwest state of Punjab, police said.
Authorities did not know the identity of the hijacker of Flight IC439 or anything about his demands, said a police officer in Amritsar, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But D.R. Bhatti, the Punjab police inspector general, said he suspected the hijacker may be a Sikh militant and that the incident was connected to the conviction Friday of a top Sikh terrorist.
Police rushed to Rajasansi Airport in Amritsar, where the plane, carrying 192 passengers and 11 crew members, was sitting on a runway.
The plane had been scheduled to fly from New Delhi to the southern cities of Hyderabad and Madras.
Chaudhary said everyone aboard was safe.
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