Indian Airlines Flight 814

Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that was hijacked on 24 December 1999 by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The passenger flight, en route from Kathmandu to Delhi, was taken over shortly after it entered Indian airspace at about 16:53 IST. The aircraft carried 190 occupants — 179 passengers and 11 crew members including Captain Devi Sharan, First Officer Rajinder Kumar, and Flight Engineer Anil Kumar Jaggia.
The aircraft was flown to Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai. While in Dubai, the hijackers released 27 passengers plus the body of a male hostage who had been stabbed by the hijackers multiple times. Later, on 25 December, the hijackers forced the aircraft to land in Kandahar in Afghanistan. At the time, most of Afghanistan, including the Kandahar airport, was under the control of the Taliban. External intervention was hindered by Taliban men encircling the aircraft, and by the presence of two officers from the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan.
On 27 December after two days of internal discussions, the Indian Government sent a team of negotiators headed by Vivek Katju from the Ministry of Home Affairs, which also included officials Ajit Doval and C.D. Sahay. The motive for the hijacking was to secure the release of various prisoners held under terrorism charges in India. The hijacking is seen as a part of the millennium attack plots in late 1999 and early 2000 by Al-Qaeda linked terrorists. After days of negotiations, India agreed to release three men it had imprisoned for terrorism – Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar – in exchange for the hostages.
The hostage crisis ended on 31 December when the passengers and crew were released after the Indian government handed the three prisoners over to the Taliban. Despite Indian expectations that the three former prisoners and the hijackers would be arrested, the men were driven to the Pakistan border and released, and they have since been suspected of involvement in other terrorism-related incidents such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, 2002 kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, 2016 Pathankot attack and the 2019 Pulwama attack. India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged ten people in relation to the case (with whereabouts unknown for seven including the five hijackers), of whom only two were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The aircraft involved was an Airbus A300B2-101, registered as VT-EDW with serial number 036. The aircraft was equipped with two General Electric CF6-50C engines. The aircraft carried 190 occupants which included 179 passengers and 11 crew members. The crew consisted of Captain Devi Sharan, First Officer Rajinder Kumar, and Flight Engineer Anil Kumar Jaggia. The passengers also included foreign nationals, amongst whom was Roberto Giori, the then-owner of De La Rue Giori, a company that controlled the majority of the world's currency-printing business at the time.
The flight carried five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) amongst the passengers. Per the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the five perpetrators were later identified as Pakistani nationals Ibrahim Athar (from Bahawalpur), Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry (all three from Karachi) and Shakir (from Sukkur). The hijackers used the code names Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar respectively to refer to themselves.
HuM is an Islamist organisation based out of Pakistan which had split from Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuI) in 1985. It reunited with HuI in 1993 to form Harkat-ul-Ansar, but after it was declared a global terrorist organisation by the United States in 1997, it changed its name back to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. After its leaders were arrested by Indian Armed Forces in 1993, the organisation perpetrated various attacks and kidnappings in India to secure the release of their leaders imprisoned in India. These included the killing of two Indian army personnel in 1994 and multiple incidents of kidnapping of Western tourists in 1994 and 1995.
Kathmandu had been a major operational base for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and a hub for other illegal activities. Based on later investigation and statements from others arrested in connection with the incident, the incident was reportedly planned for over two months. The hijackers and their associates made several trips to Kathmandu during this period. The hijack was originally planned for 27 December 1999 but was moved forward later. The tickets for the hijackers were booked through three different tour agencies under false names, and the booking was altered on 13 December. Access to the airport was facilitated through underworld operative Dawood Ibrahim.
On 24 December 1999, the flight took off from Kathmandu en route to Delhi after 16:00 hrs Indian Standard Time. It entered Indian airspace around 16:39 IST, when the passengers and crew were being served refreshments. As chief steward Anil Sharma completed serving the pilots their drinks, a man wearing a mask and brandishing both a revolver and a grenade accosted him and demanded access to the cockpit. At 16:53 IST, the pilot was told that the flight had been hijacked. The Delhi Air Traffic Control was informed of the situation at 16:56 IST.
The hijackers instructed the captain to fly west towards the Pakistani air space. The Crisis Management Group (CMG) of the Indian Government led by Union Secretary Prabhat Kumar was not convened immediately, and information concerning the hijacking was not communicated at that time to the Intelligence Bureau or the Research and Analysis Wing. Then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was traveling during the incident and was briefed regarding the incident only after he landed in Delhi. He called a meeting to discuss the situation. Passengers recounted that the hijackers ordered the crew to take away the food that had been served, separated the men from the women and children, blindfolded them and threatened them with explosives if they did not cooperate.
At 18:04 IST, the Captain radioed the Indian ATC that they had only one hour of fuel left and that the Pakistani ATC had refused permission to land at Lahore. He implored the ATC to reach out to Pakistan, as the hijackers did not want to land in India and had already threatened to execute ten hostages if their demands were not met. At 6:30 pm, the Indian High Commission in Pakistan requested permission for the plane to land there but was denied. At 18:25 IST, the CMG informed the National Security Guard (NSG) to prepare for a possible rescue mission.
When informed of fuel shortage, the hijackers allowed the Captain to land the flight at the Amritsar airport. At 18:44 IST, the flight began its descent towards the airport in Amritsar, following a message from the Captain to the Indian ATC and the CMG was informed of the same. The Indian Home Minister L. K. Advani and Director General of Police for the state of Punjab Sarabjeet Singh both later stated that they came to know of the hijacking from the television news rather than being informed by the CMG. As per guidelines, Singh asked the Inspector General of Police of the area to take charge of the situation. As the officer was on leave, J.P. Birdi, who occupied the position previously, met up with the plane.
At 19:10 IST, the NSG was ready to take off to Amritsar, but had to wait as the Government negotiators did not arrive. On landing at Amritsar, the captain requested immediate refueling for the aircraft. The hijackers had refused to communicate with local police officials while the plane was in Amritsar. Later accounts indicated that the hijackers, who were upset by the delay in refueling, stabbed passengers Satnam Singh and Rupin Katyal with a knife, causing several wounds. The captain made contact with the ATC four times, informing them that the hijackers were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and had begun killing hostages, and requested them to refuel the plane as fast as possible to prevent any additional deaths. Captain Sharan later stated that he had hoped that the ordeal would end with the assistance of Indian government and that the plane would not have to take off again from Amritsar.
Meanwhile, the CMG directed the authorities to ensure that the plane was immobilised at any cost and armed personnel of the Punjab Police were put in position to ensure the same. The aircraft engines were kept running and the plane stayed on the runway. A refueling bowser was finally dispatched but it was initially parked to the side. As the aircraft moved, it was ordered to block the aircraft from taking off and it narrowly missed hitting the plane. Then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra later revealed that a Government had asked for a sniper to be hidden in the bowser, who could shoot if required to disable the plane. Later, it was revealed that this approach caused the hijackers to suspect that the refueling process would prevent their departure, and they ordered Captain Sharan to take off immediately, resulting in the plane narrowly avoiding hitting the fuel tanker on the runway.
Eyewitness accounts later revealed that five passengers had been placed in seats towards the front with their hands bound, and the hijackers threatened that more hostages would be executed if the plane did not take off immediately. The Captain later said that he had to make a decision so as to stop them from killing the passengers. Despite receiving no clearance to take-off, the plane left Amritsar at 19:47 IST. Captain Sharan announced the departure to the ATC stating, "We are all dying." The NSG lifted off from Delhi at around 19:55 IST and arrived at the airport at 20:15 IST after the aircraft had departed.
On approaching Lahore, the aircraft again requested permission to land, which was denied by the Pakistani ATC. All the lights and navigational aids at the Lahore Airport were turned off to prevent a forced landing. As the plane had not been refueled in Amritsar, it was running out of fuel and Captain Sharan indicated that he would have to crash-land the aircraft. As he made an approach to land on a highway, the Pakistani ATC turned on the navigational aids and allowed the plane to land at the airport. The plane touched down in Lahore at 20:01 IST. On receiving information that the plane had landed in Lahore, India sought a transport for the Indian High Commissioner G. Parthasarathy to travel from Islamabad to Lahore and requested Pakistani authorities to ensure that the plane did not leave Lahore. The runway lights were again turned off to prevent the aircraft from taking off and Pakistani forces surrounded the plane.
As per Captain Sharan, the hijackers were ready to release some women and children aboard the flight, but were denied permission by Pakistani authorities. Parthasarathy later stated that his repeated requests to stop the plane from taking off were not heeded by Pakistan and that he was delayed due to transport difficulties. By the time he arrived at the airport, the plane had been refueled and was allowed to leave. The plane took off from Lahore at around 22:32 IST. The Indian officials reached out to Pakistan for confirmation of reports that passengers on board had been killed, but received no response from the Pakistani authorities.
Upon departure from Lahore, the crew was asked to set a course for Kabul. However, as the Kabul Airport did not have any night landing facilities at the time, the Captain expressed his inability to do so. As the plane flew west, most Gulf countries closed their air space to prevent the plane from landing. The flight was finally allowed to land at Al Minhad Air Base in Dubai and touched down at 1:32 IST on the next day. Following negotiations between the UAE authorities and the hijackers, 27 passengers were released in exchange for fuel. The body of the deceased 25-year-old Katyal, who had been stabbed earlier, was also offloaded. The released passengers, including Satnam Singh, who had also been attacked by the hijackers in Amritsar, and the body of Katyal were later flown to India on a special relief plane on December 25.
While the plane was in Dubai, the Indian authorities wanted to attempt a rescue by Indian forces but the UAE authorities refused permission. The UAE authorities sent catering trucks in a bid to further delay the plane, but the hijackers forced the Captain to take off and the plane narrowly made it off the runway. Captain Sharan later opined that he could have chosen to crash the aircraft to prevent it from taking off, but it presented a fire risk as the plane was full of fuel and he could not have done it without the explicit permission of the authorities. The plane later took off from Dubai at 6:20 IST in the morning.
The aircraft landed at Kandahar airport at 8:33 IST. Kandahar was under the control of Taliban and after the aircraft landed there, India had to negotiate with the Taliban authorities to reach out to the hijackers. India's lack of previous contact with the Taliban regime complicated the negotiating process. Since India did not officially recognise the Taliban regime, it dispatched an official from its High Commission in Islamabad to Kandahar and the United Nations also sent negotiators. Armed members of the Taliban surrounded the aircraft, which raised doubts on the intention of the Taliban. The Taliban maintained that the forces were deployed in an attempt to dissuade the hijackers from killing or injuring the hostages but some analysts believe it was done to prevent an Indian military operation against the hijackers.
On December 25 and 26, India internally discussed their approach to negotiations, while passengers were still on board the flight. The plane's engine was running continuously to provide lighting and heating as the temperatures dropped during the night. Passengers later stated that they received irregular meals and had limited access to drinking water and sanitation facilities, and that the hijackers utilised the public announcement system on board the plane to proselytize to the passengers. Home Minister Advani opposed any release of prisoners in exchange for the hostages, as this would affect the public opinion of the government, while External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh advocated to negotiate with the Taliban. On December 27, the Indian Government sent a team of negotiators headed by Vivek Katju, Joint-Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, along with officials Ajit Doval and C.D. Sahay.
The Indian officials found that the Taliban had surrounded the aircraft. Negotiations did not progress, as Taliban officials refused to allow Indian special forces to attempt a covert operation, and declined to allow their own special forces to do so as well. To prevent any military action, Taliban officials later surrounded the aircraft with tanks. Doval later said that the hijackers were getting active support from the ISI in Kandahar and that the ISI had handled the pressure the Indians were trying to put on the hijackers, meaning that their safe exit was guaranteed, and they had no need to negotiate an escape route. He also stated that if the hijackers were not getting active support from the ISI, then India could have resolved the hijacking.
On 27 December, a Taliban official speaking to a local newspaper stated that the hijackers should either leave Afghanistan or put down their weapons. Indian officials interpreted this statement as an understanding that Taliban officials would arrest the hijackers if they surrendered and began to negotiate with them concerning their demands. The hijackers initially demanded the release of Masood Azhar, who was lodged in an Indian prison and stated that they will release ten Indians, five foreigners and other passengers of their choice if the condition is met. India refused the offer and stated that until all the terms are laid down to completely end the hijacking, there would be no negotiations. On the same day, the hijackers made three demands which included the release of 36 prisoners lodged in various Indian jails, the return of the body of HuM founder Sajjad Afghani and US$200 million in cash. Sajjad Afghani had been arrested earlier by the Indian authorities and was killed during a jailbreak in 1999.
On further negotiations, the demand was ultimately reduced to the release of three prisoners - Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar. Azhar was arrested for terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir in 1994. Sheikh was arrested in connection with the 1994 kidnappings of foreigners perpetrated by HuA. Zargar, who had at least three dozen murder cases registered against him, had been arrested on 15 May 1992 and imprisoned. On 30 December, RAW chief A. S. Dulat communicated with then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah to release the prisoners who were then lodged in the state prisons. Abdullah was opposed to releasing the prisoners, warning Dulat of the long-term consequences, but eventually agreed to the demands of the Indian Government. The three prisoners were released and flown to Kandahar.
By this time, the hostages had been allowed to de-plane by the hijackers, and the hijackers had also surrendered their weapons to the Taliban. Passenger accounts indicated that the hijackers asked the passengers to show their gratitude to the Afghanistan Government, following which money was collected and handed to one of the passengers, Anuj Sharma, who was instructed to use it to commission a memento of the hijacking for a museum in Kandahar. India explicitly conveyed to the Taliban that it expected the Taliban to arrest and act against the perpetrators. However, instead of arresting the hijackers and the three prisoners who had been handed over to them, the Taliban authorities gave them ten hours to leave the country and drove them to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Indian Airlines suspended all flights to and from Kathmandu after the hijack. The airline resumed its Kathmandu services after five months on 1 June 2000 under the same flight numbers, after Nepal assured India of full security at Kathmandu's airport. Nepal also agreed to the installation of an additional X-ray machine and a final check of passengers by Indian security personnel at the airport. In January 2000, the security of Indian Airports was handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force. The aircraft was returned to Indian Airlines and was finally scrapped in December 2003.
On 29 December, Indian intelligence intercepted a phone call from Pakistan to Abdul Latif in Mumbai. The phone call directed Latif to contact a news agency in London and inform that the hijackers would blow the aircraft if their demands are not met. The case was investigated by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which charged ten people for the hijacking, out of whom the whereabouts of seven including the five hijackers were unknown. The hijacked aircraft became the main piece of evidence involved in the subsequent criminal investigation and subsequently a model of the plane was created for the case. Along with Latif, Dilip Kumar Bhujel and a Nepalese citizen Yusuf Nepali, who provided support to the hijackers were convicted.
After almost eight years of litigation, a special court at Patiala sentenced the three accused to life imprisonment on 5 February 2008. While the governments of Nepal and UAE helped with the investigation, the Government of Pakistan refused to cooperate on the same. During the course of the investigation, arrest warrants for the remaining seven accused, who were Pakistani nationals, were forwarded to the Government of Pakistan by the CBI for their extradition to India. Though the CBI also sought the help of Interpol and got red corner notices issued against the seven, none of them were brought to trial eventually.
The CBI later moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court demanding the death penalty for Latif. When the case came up for hearing in September 2012, the High Court dismissed the CBI's plea and confirmed the life imprisonment for Latif. It also acquitted the other two from conviction under the anti-hijacking law and confirmed their conviction only under the less stringent arms act. The CBI later approached the Supreme Court of India against the decision.
On 13 September 2012, the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested Mehrajuddin Dand, who allegedly provided logistical support for the hijacking. Meanwhile, Latif's application for parole was rejected in 2015. On 10 July 2020, Latif along with 18 others including an employee of the passport office, was acquitted by a Sessions Court in Mumbai on charges relating to the fabrication of passports in connection with the hijacking incident.
The incident was seen as a failure of then BJP led Government under Vajpayee, with Ajit Doval later saying that India would have had a stronger negotiating hand if the aircraft had not been allowed to leave Indian territory. Then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh received criticism for praising the Taliban for their co-operation after the hostages had been returned.
Relatives of the passengers aboard the flight also raised public protests at being denied information about the passengers' health and status, tried to enter the Government briefings and meetings by force to demand information, and held press conferences criticising the Government. A message from the Kandahar ATC was circulated to the public which stated that the plane was being regularly cleaned, and that the passengers were being provided with food, water, and entertainment. This was later contradicted by passenger accounts.
As per a report in Firstpost, then RAW chief Dulat had revealed that Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar, a RAW officer was aboard the plane during the hijacking. It was opined that a proposal to send the NSG was apparently sabotaged by then secretary to the Indian Prime Minister N. K. Singh, whose sister was married to Tomar. It also stated that, according to former RAW officer R. K. Yadav, Tomar was alerted by a RAW operative in Kathmandu of plans by Pakistan-based terrorists to hijack an Indian plane. However, Tomar rebuked him and told him not to spread rumors. It opined that somehow Tomar ended up on the same plane which was hijacked and became the cause of failure of the operation. Media reports also criticised that then Prime Minister Vajpayee was kept in the dark for more than an hour after the hijacking.
In a report to the Indian Parliament on 1 March 2000, the External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh stated that the Government was not initially aware that the aircraft would land at Amritsar and there was limited information about the number of perpetrators and the nature of weapons. He further stated that the information from the flight crew indicated that attackers had already killed passengers, and any action would have contributed to undue risk. The Indian authorities made all efforts to stop the aircraft from taking off.
Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden provided organisational support for the hijacking and the incident was seen as a part of the millennium attack plots in late 1999 and early 2000 by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. The Government of the United States released a press release condemning the hijacking incident and called for the release of hostages. Though the United States has engaged against the Al-Qaeda after the bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998, it actively engaged against the Taliban only after the September 11 attacks. In 2008, Jaswant Singh also opined that the hijacking was a prelude to the 2001 attacks. He criticised that the United States spent millions in Pakistan in the name of fighting terrorism, but the country did not cooperate in taking action against the perpetrators.
UAE was one of the three countries that recognised the Taliban regime. While UAE cooperated with the Indian authorities and helped with the release of hostages, it could not do much to prevent the plane from taking off. Pakistan did not help in ending the hijack attempt and Indian officials described the involvement of ISI. Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar blamed India of staging the hijacking to defame the Government of Pakistan.
Doval, who was part of the negotiating team, described the whole incident as a diplomatic failure due to the Government's inability to force the United States and the UAE to help secure a quick release of the passengers. India had actively opposed the Taliban regime ever since it gained power in Afghanistan in 1996 as they were suspected to be involved in training militants for attacks in Indian Kashmir region. Though Taliban had publicly indicated the displeasure at the hijacking, it did not actively help India and shared some similar interests with the ISI.
While Taliban and India negotiated to end the hijacking, it was considered a set back to India as it was forced to negotiate with the Taliban. It later supported the Northern Alliance and provided logistical support to them in the fight against the Taliban. The leader of the alliance Ahmad Shah Massoud visited India on multiple occasions to discuss strategies to take on the Taliban. During the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, the Indian Government provided intelligence on training camps of Islamic militants in Afghanistan.
The three released terrorists and the hijackers have since been implicated in other terrorism related incidents such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, 2002 kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, 2008 Mumbai attacks, 2016 Pathankot attack and the 2019 Pulwama attack. Azhar later founded Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) in 2000, which gained notoriety for its alleged role in the various attacks, which led to the death of hundreds of Indian civilians and armed forces personnel. Sheikh went on to join Azhar at JeM in 2000 after the release. He was later arrested in 2002 by Pakistani authorities for the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl. He also played a significant role in planning the September 2001 attacks in the United States. Since his release, Zargar has played an active role in training Islamic militants in Pakistan administrated Jammu & Kashmir.
Amjad Farooqi, who was earlier involved in the 1995 kidnapping of Western tourists in Kashmir by Al-Faran, was also involved in the hijacking under the alias "Mansur Hasnain". On 1 March 2022, one of the hijackers, Zahoor Mistry, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Karachi, Pakistan. Ibrahim was held responsible for the murder of the passenger Rupin Katyal and the gunmen who killed Ibrahim were never identified.
Captain Sharan was awarded the 1999 Safe Skies Award for "extraordinary coolness and courage in life-or-death circumstances".
The incident has the subject of several books including various books co-authored by various members of the flight crew.