Who Engineered the Hijacking of Indian Airliner?

Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee accused Pakistan of masterminding the recent hijacking of the Indian airliner by Kashmiri militants while it was on its scheduled flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi. This is a serious allegation and it has come from no other than the Prime Minister of India. India wants the USA to declare Pakistan a "terrorist state" and the consequences of such declaration are deleterious in international relations.

Why does the Indian Prime Minister come up with the allegation?

India's relations nose-dived after the coup in Pakistan on October 12. It is alleged in India that the Chief Executive of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf was behind the Kargil incidents and the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's reconciliatory attitude under pressure from President Clinton in facilitating the withdrawal of Islamic militants from Kargil areas in the Himalayas was one of the principal reasons for the coup in Pakistan. General Musharraf is considered as a hawk in India in so far as Indian-administered Kashmir is concerned. He is known to have lent his government's diplomatic and moral support as distinct of armed assistance to the cause of the Kashmiris against the occupation of Indian-held part of Kashmir. Pakistan perceives the insurgency as the assertion of human rights of the Kashmiris. It is fact that during the last decade 25,000 people died in the insurgency in the Indian-administered Kashmir and there seems to be no let-up of such killing-incidents in the area.

Although General Musharraf withdrew Pakistani soldiers from the international borders with India, it did not include the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir as LOC was not recognised as the international boundary between India and Pakistan. Until the dispute of Kashmir is amicably settled the international boundary wont be delimited.

India felt that the military government in Pakistan would be considered a pariah state by the West. But that did not occur. At the Commonwealth heads of meeting in Durban (South Africa) on 12 November, India attempted to expel Pakistan from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth leaders did not readily accept the Indian proposition and only suspension of Pakistan as a member from the organisation continued and after two years a review would take place by the Commonwealth with respect to the status of the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

Meanwhile General Musharraf 's attempt to tackle nation's endemic corruption and moribund economy has pleased the quarters both inside and outside the country. His vision to transform Pakistan in the ideals of Mustapha Kamal Pasha of Turkey demonstrated his attitude on the role of Islam in modern Pakistan. The fact that General Musharraf distanced from Islamic fundamentalism seems to be comforting to the West and his roadmap to establish a democratic Pakistan appears to remain his objective, although he failed to provide a time-frame of restoring an elected government.

India seems to be disappointed at the reaction of the West towards Pakistan's military government. Pakistan's international standing did not appear to suffer and its relations with the West continued as normal as possible. The only glitch seems to be that President Clinton may not include Pakistan in his tour while visiting South Asia in the early part of this year.

India now alleges that Pakistan is behind the hijacking of the Indian plane. The Indian Prime Minister did not provide any evidence to support this accusation. On the other hand, Pakistan vehemently denied this accusation and announced not to provide sanctuary to the hijackers in Pakistan. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdus Satter (a retired career diplomat) counter-claimed that the whole episode was an Indian conspiracy to malign Pakistan. A neutral party is in a fix as to which is the truth.

India considers that the fact that the plane was able to land in Taliban controlled Afghanistan provides a vital clue behind the conspiracy of hijacking of the Indian airliner. Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan is at present recognised by only three countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Therefore, India attempts to find a nexus between Taliban and Pakistan in masterminding the hijacking. Furthermore India suspects that in the past Kargil incidents, many Islamic militants trained and equipped with arms in Afghanistan were involved and these forces with the support of Pakistan's army intelligence planned and executed the hijacking.

To support India's claim, they cited that the Taliban initially stated that the hijackers after their release of the passengers and the plane headed towards Quetta in Pakistan which could be reached from Kandahar in Afghanistan within five hours and this statement India claimed that lent credibility to their story.

The war of words between the two countries is not unusual. But unless India comes up with the evidence of Pakistan's involvement, it will sound crying an empty accusation against Pakistan. The possession of nuclear weapons has already injected volatility and uncertainty in South Asia. India's unsubstantiated allegation against Pakistan could be compared to a bush fire - it is easily started and is somewhat indiscriminate about what it damages. The tragedy appears to be that such accusation will not only deteriorate sharply the relations between India and Pakistan but also likely to vitiate the political atmosphere in the entire sub-continent.

The writer, a Barrister, is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.