IC-814 hijack plotters brought to city for Borivli bank heist trial

Mumbai: Two dreaded terrorists-Abdul Latif and Bhopal Mal-who played a direct role in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar, have been brought to Mumbai.
The two have already been sentenced to life by a special court in Patiala. Now, a Mumbai sessions court will try them for robbing a bank at Borivli in 1999 to finance the hijacking.
According to the police, the duo was picked up from a chawl in Jogeshwari on December 30, 1999, after intelligence agencies intercepted a phone call to Pakistan. IC-814 was hijacked a week earlier and the phone conversation revealed that Latif and Mal had robbed Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (Borivli) on October 6, 1999, to bankroll the operation.
The duo was arrested along with two others-Mohammed Asif alias Babloo, a resident of Karachi, and Mohammed Rafiq Haji, who was from Multan. The investigation showed that the group first stole a Maruti van in Orlem and then robbed the bank with the help of sophisticated weapons like AK-56. They robbed over Rs 7 lakh, but only Rs 1.72 lakh was recovered as the rest of the money had been transferred to the hijackers in Pakistan through hawala transactions.
Thereafter, Latif and Mal were sent to Patiala by the Mumbai police to face trial in a special anti-hijacking court. Last year, they were sentenced to life for their role in the conspiracy to hijack IC-814. The CBI had, however, asked for a death sentence for them.
08/02/09 Kartikeya/Times of India

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Categories: Air India Domestic Feb 2009, Foreign Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009