NEW DELHI: Indian detectives have left for Chile to verify reports that a man held by police in Santiago was linked to the 1999 hijack of an Indian passenger plane, officials said Wednesday.
The New Delhi-bound Indian Airlines flight 814, with 157 people on board, was seized and flown to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar by five men after taking off from the Nepalese capital Kathmandu on December 24, 1999.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials said a two-member team flew late Tuesday to Chile, where the suspect had been detained, reportedly for having fake travel documents.
“They have gone to ascertain whether the man in custody is Abdul Rauf who was involved in the hijacking,” CBI spokeswoman Dharini Mishra told AFP.
“Depending on the report we get we will certainly initiate action,” Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters when asked about possible extradition proceedings.
The hijack crisis ended after India’s then Hindu nationalist government swapped three jailed militants for the hostages.
One of the freed militants, Ahmed Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar, was later involved in the kidnap and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan — for which he was arrested and sentenced to death.
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