Bangladeshi security forces have arrested a man allegedly involved in the deadly hijacking by militants of an Indian Airlines jet in 1999 that led to the release of several prisoners held in Indian jails.
The arrest was made on Tuesday, March 2 in Dhaka’s commercial district, according to Col Matiur Rahman, a spokesman for Bangladesh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion. He said the arrested person belonged to Jaish-i-Mohammed, which is linked to both Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Five militants — armed with pistols, grenades and knives — hijacked the Indian Airlines aircraft as it took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Air Port to New Delhi in December 1999. The hijackers took the aircraft to Kandahar after brief stop overs in Lahorea nd Dubai. Their demand was release of Pakistani militant leaders arrested in Kashmir and held in jails in Delhi and other places.
The hijacking ended after an eight-day standoff when India released three prisoners in exchange for 155 hostages. One of the hostages was killed.The hijackers simply disappeared from the Kandahar airport and later appeared in Pakistan.
Among those freed was Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born militant later convicted in the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
