The hijacking of IC-814 occurred on December 24, 1999, shortly after it took off from Kathmandu. An armed, masked passenger stormed the cockpit and ordered the pilot to divert the flight away from its destination, Delhi. It ended on December 31 in Kandahar after multiple stopovers, the killing of a passenger, and deplorable mismanagement when it landed for refuelling in Amritsar. The standoff concluded with a deal negotiated between the hijackers and an Indian team, which predictably cost India dearly since it involved the release of hardcore terrorists from Indian detention. The details of the eight-day ordeal are well known, but even after 25 years, the incident still haunts all Indians, leaving a trail of unanswered questions.
It is important to understand the backdrop against which the hijacking occurred, particularly the domestic context in Nepal and the state of its bilateral relations with India. Equally crucial are the activities of Pakistan and the narco-terrorist industry linked to it, both of which had a stake in reversing India-Nepal cooperation in sensitive sectors.
India-Nepal ties improved spectacularly after former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao initiated the twin-pillar policy of supporting both the constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, a major departure from the policies of earlier decades. His successors continued this approach, enabling sustained stability and expanding cooperation despite political instability and frequent changes of government in both countries. Broad consensus across the political spectrum had resulted in important agreements on water, energy, trade, transit, connectivity and security being reached in a constructive, cooperative environment.
Pakistan, on the other hand, was on the back foot. Its frequent misuse of diplomatic immunity to indulge in smuggling of counterfeit currency, drugs and arms and its support for underworld mafias based in Pakistan were repeatedly exposed. On one occasion, Dawood Ibrahim, a frequent visitor to Nepal as a guest of the Pakistan Embassy, was nearly nabbed from a secret Kathmandu hideout on the King’s initiative. There was a real possibility of the multi-billion-dollar cross-border narco-terrorist network unravelling.
Pakistan was also desperate to drive a wedge between India and Nepal for another reason. The Maoist insurgency was launched in 1996 from a small far-western village, and by 1999 it had spread its wings to all 75 districts of Nepal, causing thousands of deaths and threatening multi-party democracy, its institutions and the special relationship with India. Exploratory talks were being considered for dialogue with the Maoists, which would enable them to be mainstreamed into democracy, coexist peacefully with the constitutional monarchy and moderate their stance on India-Nepal ties. This was at a time when Islamabad itself was trying to reach out to the Maoists for an understanding to undermine the “common enemy”: the monarchy and India.
Meanwhile, India-Pakistan relations had hit rock bottom. Both countries detonated nuclear weapons in May 1998. A bitter war was fought in Kargil in which Pakistan was humiliated. The overall geopolitical setting was also favourable to India, with the US cooperating on Pakistan’s anti-India activities via Nepal, and China being broadly neutral. As is often the case in India-Pakistan crises, the Pakistani establishment sought a major provocation against India to bolster its position at home.
Reports were coming from various sources, not always well-informed, that some major Pakistani action was imminent in Nepal to hurt India and to jeopardise India-Nepal ties. With the benefit of hindsight, one can say that even if such rumours were not always from credible sources, considering the overall backdrop and the clear motives that Pakistan had for serious mischief, security should clearly have been strengthened for Indian Airlines flights. For India, it was not so much an intelligence failure as a failure to sift the vast volume of information circulating through the Kathmandu rumour mill.
Much has been made of the fact (confirmed by many authoritative sources, including the then R&AW chief, A S Dulat) that one of the Kathmandu Embassy-based officials from R&AW was on the hijacked flight. Some senior Indian columnists even alleged that junior embassy colleagues had cautioned the official that the flight might be hijacked, but he did not take the warning seriously. Although the inputs may not have been based on solid evidence, in that context, it would certainly have been prudent for the intelligence official to avoid travelling by Indian Airlines altogether.
A more valid query would be whether Pakistan knew that an Indian R&AW official was on the flight. Kathmandu was swarming with double agents who tipped off both the Indian and Pakistani embassies with “exciting” information simply to gain access to senior officials in both.
The Indian government did not mention this official’s name when the list of passengers was released shortly after the hijacking. The first information that he was on the ill-fated plane came from Pakistan on December 27, when its foreign office spokesman Tariq Altaf revealed it in a press briefing in Islamabad.
One can safely conclude that this fitted in with the initial Pakistan effort to blame India for the hijacking. However, second thoughts obviously prevailed since it might have boomeranged, and the ISI hand would have been eventually exposed.
Some key lessons of the Kathmandu hijack of 25 years ago have still perhaps not been learnt.
Hostility towards India is in Pakistan’s DNA, and activities aimed against India are unlikely to end in the foreseeable future. It is important to understand that there is no limit to what the Pakistani deep state is willing to go to hurt India.
India needs to sift good intelligence from bad if such tragedies are to be prevented. India tends towards complacency and self-congratulation when things go right. But the fact is that Indian intelligence needs to be extra vigilant always, and not selectively.
There is a straight line from IC-814 through several subsequent major terrorist incidents in India, right up to Pahalgam, where there was inexplicably no security for tourists despite warnings from security personnel, and even probably to the Red Fort blasts, when suspicious movement in cars packed with explosives for several days was not detected in time.
India also must appreciate the more adverse overall geopolitical setting today, in which Pakistani mischief might be escalated. China is now assertively trying to undermine Indian interests and is likely to continue to do so. New Delhi must not be lulled by the veneer of tactical improvements in Sino-Indian ties. The US, too, is clearly not a dependable strategic ally when it comes to Indo-Pak tensions. The Pakistan military itself, under its all-powerful Field Marshal, seems to be desperate to provoke India to strengthen itself.
Restraint in India’s reactions to provocation may be justified as the world seems in no mood to endorse muscular retaliation, but some way has to be found to ensure that Pakistan pays for its misdeeds.
Finally, the fact is that Pakistan always seems to employ more effective tools of misinformation. New Delhi needs to improve communication techniques and technologies so that India’s case does not become substantially diluted in the dangerous months ahead. India needs to introspect objectively on why things went wrong with IC-814 in 1999. If we do not learn from the past, the past may well repeat itself in a much more sinister form.
(The author is a former secretary Ministry of External Affairs. He was India’s ambassador to Nepal when the hijacking of IC-814 took place)
