Ex-hijacker stopped at New Delhi airport on way to Holland

Srinagar, Dec 17 (UNI) Senior separatist leader Hashim Qureshi was today stopped by the authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi when he was to board an Austrian Airways flight to Amsterdam.

Talking to UNI here on phone from the national capital, Qureshi said he was stopped by the authorities from proceeding to The Netherlands at the IGIA minutes before his flight to Vienna, the capital of Austria, on way to Amsterdam at 0230 hrs early today.

Qureshi, who holds a Dutch passport, said he was told that entry visa had expired in September this year.

He heads the Democratic Liberation Party (DLP) and is the founder member of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.

Qureshi said he does not possess a valid visa as he was apprehended by the Indian authorities in New Delhi while on way to Nepal on December 29, 2000, in connection with the hijacking case.

He said the Jammu and Kashmir High Court later granted him bail and also gave him permission to leave the country as and when required after informing the authorities besides used to get visa on arrival in New Delhi.

Qureshi said this time also he had got an eight-week permission from the court. However, he said the authorities refused permission to him this time despite showing the passport and other documents and instead asked him to get the matter cleared from the External Affairs Ministry. He has applied for an Indian passport as well.

Qureshi had hit international headlines at the age of 17 years when he along with his cousin Ashraf Qureshi hijacked an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship plane (Ganga) on a flight from Srinagar to Delhi in 1971.

The aircraft was later blown up at the Lahore airport after the passengers alighted in the presence of then Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Qureshi, suspected of Indian connections, was sentenced by a special court in Pakistan to rigorous imprisonment for a total of 19 years. However, later the Pakistan Supreme Court released him after he spent nine years and three months in various prisons and torture cells in that country.

On being released in 1980, Qureshi went on a self-imposed exile, first to the UK and then to The Netherlands where he was settled for 14 years before his return to India in 2000.

UNI AG YA ND1918