A decade after IC 814 hijack, India is more prepared

New Delhi: Ten years after the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, on its way from Kathmandu to New Delhi, India remains vulnerable to such assaults but key protocols are in place to thwart such incidents, say security experts and strategists.
If circa 1999 exposed the total unpreparedness of both the security and political establishments to resolve swiftly one of the country's most trying crises, a decade later much water has flown under the bridge ensuring that such incidents are unlikely to recur.
In place now is a tough anti-hijack policy that lays down procedures for shooting down a hijacked aircraft, heightened security presence in all airports by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), sky marshals in flights and a fortified internal security mechanism.
"We have an anti-hijack policy that rules out negotiations with hijackers. What is more important is that we have ironed out the bureaucratic delays during crisis situations. But we still have to be cautious," Minister of State for Railways E Ahamed said.
The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has prepared an aviation security manual that lists out a three-stage classification process for shooting down a hijacked aircraft.
When India was celebrating its last Christmas eve of the millennium, IC-814 was commandeered by five Pakistani militants and forced to land in three different airports - Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai - before spending a week on the tarmac in Kandahar with 186 hostages on board.
On New Year's eve, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, accompanied three terrorists to Afghanistan, in exchange for the release of the hostages.
In contrast to 1999, when there was a hostile Taliban regime in Kabul, India now enjoys excellent relations with the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan having invested $1.2 billion in socio-economic reconstruction.
The CISF that took over the security of airports soon after the Kandahar incident in early 2000 maintains that it is fully geared to prevent such incidents.
24/12/09 Indo-Asian News Service/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Air India Domestic Dec 2009, Airports Dec 2009, Foreign Dec 2009, NACIL Dec 2009, Safety Dec 2009