Hijackers Demand $200 Million and 35 Rebels’ Release

The Indian Airlines hijacking took an ominous turn Tuesday as the terrorists escalated their demands, asking for $200 million and the release of 35 jailed guerrillas in exchange for the freedom of their 160 captives.

The new demands, which the Muslim extremist hijackers announced in a letter dropped from the door of the plane in southern Afghanistan, included the exhumation and return of a comrade buried in India.

The hijackers had originally demanded the release of a jailed Pakistani leader of a guerrilla group that is fighting to expel the Indian government from the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Harkat Moujahedeen group, whose fighters reportedly train in Afghanistan, has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The new demands further complicated the ordeal, which began Christmas Eve when the hijackers commandeered the plane in Nepal. As the hostages began their sixth day in captivity today, Indian negotiators relayed their government’s reply to the hijackers’ demands.

As the hostages endured yet another day in captivity Tuesday, the hijacked Airbus A-300 lost power and ventilation for several hours as it sat on a desolate runway in the city of Kandahar, and the pilot told negotiators that conditions inside were terrible.

Wishal Sharma, an Indian doctor sent to Kandahar with his country’s negotiating team, said the hostages are probably suffering immense psychological trauma.

“Normally after four to five days, hostages start losing their patience and can suffer a nervous breakdown,” Sharma said. “Either they react violently against their hijackers in frustration or they can start sympathizing with them. We fear both scenarios.”

The additional demands issued Tuesday, coupled with the horrific conditions for the hostages, presented India with a dilemma: Like the U.S. and most other countries, it does not maintain diplomatic relations with Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Islamic Taliban regime--and it doesn’t want to appear to be giving any ground on Kashmir--but public pressure is mounting for the government to act.

As the news seeped in Tuesday night, the Indian leadership seemed stunned.

“We will send an appropriate response through our negotiating team,” Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters as he left a meeting of the Cabinet. “In the meanwhile, let the international community and the nation reflect on this.”

The negotiations began Monday after the hijackers threatened to start killing the passengers. The hijackers, believed to number five, have already stabbed to death one Indian man whose new bride is still on board the aircraft.

Indian negotiators said conditions aboard the plane were worsening daily, but they denied reports that the hostages were forced to wear blindfolds and remain seated.

“They are allowed to walk around the plane and mingle. They are not forced to wear blindfolds,” an Indian official in Kandahar told Reuters.

However, the BBC, quoting Taliban soldiers, said the passengers were still blindfolded after five days in captivity.

Several children remained among the hostages, and the hijackers rejected an Indian demand Tuesday that they be freed.

“Their continued incarceration is a terrible crime against humanity,” Singh said.

The stepped-up demands by the hijackers shattered the few hopeful signs that had emerged early Tuesday. With negotiations underway, the hijackers had allowed passengers to change clothes for the first time since their ordeal began, and they allowed the plane’s toilets to be emptied.

When the plane’s power supply failed--cutting the electricity and choking off ventilation--the hijackers threw open the doors and allowed an Indian engineer into the cockpit. Singh said the Indian engineer had made direct contact with some of the passengers.

Moreover, the hijackers agreed to send one of their own outside the plane to sit with the Taliban to ensure the safe return of the Indian engineer. A masked man wearing a red shirt, checkered pants and sunglasses climbed down from the plane and sat in a truck while the repairs were made.

Talks between the hijackers and the negotiators were conducted via walkie-talkie after the plane lost electricity. After two hours, the Indian engineer managed to repair the power system and the masked terrorist climbed back inside.

It is not clear whether the repairs made by the engineer would enable the plane, which has been experiencing mechanical problems, to take off again.

Taliban officials reiterated Tuesday that if negotiations broke down, they would insist that the hijackers either surrender or take off again. They also repeated their threat to storm the plane if any of the hostages are harmed. Taliban troops, armed with grenade launchers and machine guns, have surrounded the plane.

Taliban authorities already are under U.N. sanctions for hosting Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, considered by the United States to be a mastermind of global terrorism, and they appear to want to minimize their contact with the hijackers.

“If there is no hope of progress, hen they will insist that the plane leave,” said Mohammad Tayyab Agha, a member of the Taliban leadership.

That might invite a clash between the Taliban and India, which does not want the plane to take off again.

The ordeal began Friday when the hijackers commandeered the Indian Airlines flight after its departure from Nepal and took it on an odyssey across South Asia and the Middle East. The plane landed in Amritsar in India, Lahore in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates before touching down in Kandahar on Saturday. The hostages are mostly Indians, but there are also eight Nepalese, four Swiss, four Spaniards, two French citizens, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Belgian, an Italian, an Australian and an American.

The captors have freed 28 people, mostly women and children.

The beginning of talks between the Indians and the hijackers marked a significant departure from New Delhi’s public stance of never negotiating with terrorists. But it was unclear Tuesday whether the Indians were willing to entertain the hijackers’ demands or whether they were simply trying to wear the hijackers down.

Indian officials did not name the 35 militants whose release they said the hijackers are demanding. But the dead man whose return the hijackers are seeking is Sajjad Afghani, another Harkat Moujahedeen leader. Afghani, arrested in India in 1994, was killed earlier this year when his comrades tried to spring him from jail.

The widening gulf between the hijackers and Indian leaders only intensified the trauma for the families of the hostages. Many of those relatives have criticized the Indian government, saying it has not done enough to free the hostages.

On Tuesday, some said the situation was at its bleakest.

“I am going through a very traumatic time,” said Aroomi Bhuyan, whose father is on the hijacked plane. “We want our relatives back, come what may.”

*

Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

* IMPACT ON THE REGION

Hijacking heightens Indian-Pakistani tensions and may derail plans for Clinton visit. A6