Govt plans no-talks policy, death for hijackers

New Delhi: With the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the humiliating 1999 Kandahar hijack firmly on its radar, the UPA government plans to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982 to make it much more iron-fisted, providing for a no-negotiation policy and death penalty to the hijackers.
The new measures would treat hijacking as "an act of aggression" and entail "directions to all domestic airports to promptly immobilise a hijacked plane if it lands", sources said.
The proposed amendments to the 1982 Act are likely to be taken up by the Cabinet on Thursday.
"If at all negotiations take place, it will only be tactical - aimed at preventing loss of life or bringing the incident to a swift closure," a source said, indicating that the government would not want a capitulation like the one witnessed in 1999 when three extremely dangerous terrorists were released. The new measures flow from the anti-hijacking policy cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security in August 2005. It allows shooting down of a "hostile plane if there is conclusive evidence that it is likely to be used as a missile to blow up strategic establishments", on the lines of the 9/11 Al-Qaida attacks in the US in 2001.
14/02/08 Mahendra Kumar Singh & Rajat Pandit/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Feb 2008, Safety Feb 2008