Jaswant Singh and officials of the external affairs ministry worked tirelessly to bring the Kandahar crisis to a 'satisfactory end', says Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani in his book
My Country My Life. Giving details about the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in his book, the former deputy prime minister wrote: 'I was sitting in my office on a cold Friday afternoon on December 24,1999, when Shyamal Dutta, former director of Intelligence Bureau called me to convey the bad news. 'Sir, an Indian Airlines plane coming from Nepal has been hijacked'. I was stunned by what I heard.'
While talking about the seriousness with which the National Democratic Alliance government was determined to combat the crisis, Advani admits that hijackers had asked for release of 36 Pakistani prisoners in lodged in various jails along with $200 million.
Though Advani