IM keen to repeat 1999-like air-hijacking to free Bhatkal

New Delhi, Jan 17: Security has been beefed up in airports across the country after the Bureau of Civial Aviation Security (BCAS) alerted airport operators earlier this week about the possibility of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) hijacking an aircraft to put pressure of the Indian government to release one of its founder Yasin Bhatkal.

In the alert, the BCAS said recent inputs suggested that the IM operatives may organise the "hijacking of aircraft or forcible intrusion at uncategorised, smaller airports which are vulnerable to demand the release of Yasin Bhatkal".

Entry of visitors may be lkept within restrictions and sale of visitor entry tickets may be stopped from January 20 to 31. Other measures like strengthening anti-terrorist measures, checking of vehicles entering the parking slot to curb possibilities of car-bomb attacks will also be undertaken.

The terrorists had hijacked IC-814 in 1999 to successfully free JeM leaders

Authorities still remember a similar situation in 1999 when an Indian Airlines aircraft IC 814 was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan when the hijackers successfully negotiated the release of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar and two others.

Bhatkal, the IM leader, was arrested near the Nepal border in Bihar on August 27 last year and is being grilled by interrogators in connection to several terror attacks in India ever since.

OneIndia News