 | |
| Hijacking | |
|---|---|
| Date | 24 December 1999 – 31 December 1999 |
| Summary | Hijacking |
| Site | Hijacked in Indian airspace en-route from Kathmandu to Delhi; Later landed at Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and Kandahar |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A300B2-101 |
| Operator | Indian Airlines |
| IATA flight No. | IC814 |
| ICAO flight No. | IAC814 |
| Call sign | INDAIR 814 |
| Registration | VT-EDW |
| Flight origin | Tribhuvan International Airport |
| Destination | Indira Gandhi International Airport |
| Occupants | 190 |
| Passengers | 179 (including 5 hijackers) |
| Crew | 11 |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Injuries | 17 |
| Survivors | 189 |
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 the Indian airspace at about 16:53 IST. The aircraft carried 190 occupants which included 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 including a critically injured 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 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 December 27, 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.