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'I want smile on your faces'

''I don't want you to be glum... I want smile on your faces,'' was the stern command of the ''chief'' hijacker to the passengers and the crew of the hijacked Indian Airlines Airbus from Kathmandu to Delhi.

Rajendra Kumar Goud, the co-pilot of the ill-fated aircraft, said in Hyderabad yesterday that the hijackers began treating them well once the plane landed at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

The tension between the passengers and the hijackers eased further after three or four days and the hijackers began reciting Urdu couplets and cracking and sharing jokes. However, when the passengers started playing antakshri , their ''chief'' forbade them.

Narrating the eight-day ordeal, he said every moment for the passengers and the crew was filled with anxiety as nobody knew who would be killed. The passengers had told him that Rupin Katyal was killed by the hijackers for not obeying their instructions.

Goud said Captain D Sharan, he and flight engineer Anil Jaggia who were in the cockpit were ''shocked when the Airbus was hijacked. They overpowered us and hijacked the plane. We had to keep our cool and told them that we had enough fuel to go to Delhi. They were, however, not willing to land anywhere in India and said it did not matter even if it crashed anywhere.''

He felt that laxity in security at the Kathmandu airport might have enabled the hijackers to board the aircraft with weapons.

Goud said when the plane landed at Amritsar, the hijackers were in full strength and made the crew move the aircraft forward and backward and veer it to right and left to ensure that nobody came near the aircraft.

''Had there been no delay in refuelling at Amritsar, the killing and injuries to the passengers wouldn't have probably happened. Though we were waiting for the fuel bowser, there was no response. The fuel bowser was kept at a distance of 200 feet from the aircraft. The hijackers were scared that some commandos might be nearing the aircraft and forced the crew to take off to Lahore,'' he said.

The ''chief'' of the hijackers, who refused to identify himself or the place from where he came, mostly spoke in Hindi while ''deputy chief Burger'' spoke in English. When we asked what their demands were, they said, ''We will tell you later.''

''In fact we did not know about their demand for the release of Masood Azhar and others till External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh arrived at Kandahar,'' he said.

After the plane reached Kandahar, the cockpit crew were ordered to sit in the cabin and the hijackers took over the cockpit.

During the first few days we were disappointed as no Indian representative reached Kandahar for talks and only UN officials were holding negotiations.

The hijackers said, ''Your people don't want to talk to us.''

Only on the sixth day, on December 29, ''we felt a bit relieved when the hijackers told us that there was 80 per cent progress in the talks.

''We also told the hijackers to be flexible and not to kill us,'' he said.

The hijackers then said that ''we don't want to kill you unless your government forces us to do so.''

He said the hijackers panicked when the Taliban military surrounded the aircraft on December 29.

Describing their release from captivity as ''a new life for us'', he said, ''I am feeling great.''

He also said the landing of the aircraft at the Lahore airport was a ''miraculous escape''. The global positioning system in the aircraft was of invaluable help to the crew.

Asked if the aircraft was in a position to take off from Kandahar if the hijackers forced them to do so, he said it was not in a position to take off due to a leak in the fuel tank.

The pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, however, had a contingency plan -- to crash land on the Kandahar airport's runway at takeoff speed.

This would have saved many lives though some might get killed, he said.

Before leaving the aircraft, the hijackers wished the crew and passengers a happy and prosperous New Year.

He said the leader of the hijackers was ''probably the brother of Masood Azhar'' who was among the three militants released by the Indian government in exchange for freeing the hostages.

UNI

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