Ex-hijacker acusses EAM officials of ''delaying tactics''

Srinagar, Dec 19 (UNI) Senior separatist leader Hashim Qureshi today accused the External Affairs Ministry officials of using ''delaying tactics'' in granting him permission to visit The Netherlands, where he has to appear before a court in Amsterdam on December 21 in connection with a civil case.

Talking to UNI here on phone from the national capital, Qureshi said he was stopped by the authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi on Sunday minutes before he was to board an Austrian Airways flight to Amsterdam.

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

''I have since approached the External Affairs Ministry for the entry visa. But, the authorities are using delaying tactics and so far refused permission to travel to Amsterdam where I have to appear before a court in connection with a civil case,'' he added.

He heads the Democratic Liberation Party and is also 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 geting 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 VD ND1502