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India shoots to kill
in the skies
By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Almost six years
after its inept handling of the hijack of an
Indian Airlines aircraft resulted in an abject
buckling to the hijackers' demands, India has
finally adopted a tough hijack policy.
The
policy, which has been approved by India's Cabinet
Committee on Security (CCS), allows for shooting
down hijacked commercial aircraft that are deemed
to have become "missiles" heading for strategic
targets. While providing for negotiations with
hijackers to bring to an end a hijacking incident,
to comfort passengers and prevent loss of life,
the policy is categorical that hijackers' demands
are not negotiable. It views hijacking as an act
of aggression against the country, punishable with
the death sentence.
The new hijack policy
is an attempt to put in place a clear set of
guidelines to avoid the bungling evident in
December 1999. On Christmas Eve, Indian Airlines
flight IC 814 from Katmandu to New Delhi was
hijacked. Low on fuel, the hijacked plane landed
first at Amritsar in India's Punjab state. But
Indian officials at Amritsar blundered. They
failed to act to immobilize the plane and allowed
an opportunity to end the crisis at that point to
slip away. The crisis ended a week later, after
the Indian government capitulated to the
hijackers' demands.
It freed three jailed
terrorists - including Omar Sheikh, who would
later be implicated in the kidnapping and killing
of US journalist Daniel Pearl, and Masood Azhar,
who would subsequently form the Jaish-e-Mohammad -
as demanded by the hijackers in exchange for 160
passengers on board the aircraft. The then-Indian
external affairs minister Jaswant Singh even
traveled with the three freed terrorists to
Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The Indian
government's options were no doubt restricted
considerably by the fact that Pakistan and the
United Arab Emirates, where the hijacked aircraft
landed after leaving Indian airspace, were not
particularly helpful - India has consistently
maintained that Pakistan played a role in
facilitating the hijack. More importantly,
Afghanistan, where the aircraft finally landed,
was under Taliban control. India did not have
diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime and
here, too, it was more than evident that the
hijackers had the support of the Taliban.
While these factors did shrink India's
options, it was flagrant administrative lapses at
the initial stage that weakened the government's
position. The government simply did not know what
to do. Valuable time was lost wondering whether
the aircraft should be stormed or not. Even as
officials were busy wringing their hands, the
aircraft took off from Amritsar and left Indian
airspace.
The government's options were
further restricted because of pressure from the
hostages' families and the public. Much of this
public pressure came because of the government's
wishy-washy policy in dealing with hostage-taking.
It had in the past negotiated with terrorists and
surrendered to their demands.
On December
1989, Rubaiya Saeed, daughter of the then-home
minister (and present chief minister of Jammu and
Kashmir) was abducted by militants of the Jammu
and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). Delhi caved
in to the terrorists' demands and in exchange for
Rubaiya's freedom, released five of the JKLF's top
leaders who were then in custody. That surrender
not only gave a huge boost to militancy in
Kashmir, it also weakened Delhi's hand in dealing
with subsequent hostage-taking incidents.
The blunder of December 1989 came back to
haunt the government during the IC 814 hijack. If
the government could free five top terrorists for
the sake of one woman, why not free three to save
160 people? Its options limited to start with and
compounded by its inept handling of the crisis,
the eventual terrorists-for-hostages swap was
inevitable.
Now, six years later, India
appears to have finally got its act together and
made public a clear and coherent policy.
New approach
The new policy
states that fighter aircraft will take off
immediately to escort any plane that is hijacked
and is airborne. The fighter aircraft will escort
the plane all the time it is within Indian
airspace. If the hijacked aircraft were an
Indian-registered one, the effort would be to get
it to land at an Indian airport. Once the hijacked
plane landed at an Indian airport, all efforts
would be focused on not allowing it to take off
again, by either bringing in fire tenders to block
the runway or turning off the runway lights.
The policy provides for armed intervention
to end a hijack. The decision to storm a hijacked
aircraft would be taken by the CCS, the apex body
for handling hijack situations.
The chain
of command, too, has been clarified. Pranab Dhal
Samanta writes in Indian Express that "an
elaborate mechanism of coordination from the level
of contact, which is the ATC [air traffic
controller], up to the CCS has been laid out in
the policy. The Joint Control and Analysis Center
comprising air force and ATC officials will be the
point from where information will be disseminated
to other agencies. A committee of secretaries on
aircraft hijack, consisting of Foreign, Home,
Defense and Civil Aviation secretaries, apart from
heads of intelligence agencies and the principal
information officer, will form the crisis
management group and coordinate with the CCS. They
will also communicate with the executive
authority, which will be the central committee
with officers from relevant ministries and
agencies to carry out orders. This committee will
maintain a panel of negotiators, psychiatrists and
linguists to deal with the situation."
The
policy provides for shooting down a hijacked
commercial aircraft. It lays down a classification
process to ensure that the hijacked aircraft is
indeed a threat aircraft, ie a "rogue aircraft"
that deviates from flight plans, refuses to heed
warnings from ATC or fighter aircraft and is
headed for a strategic target, like government
installations, parliament, etc. A decision to
shoot down a threat aircraft will be taken by the
CCS. However, in case of shortage of time, the
prime minister, defense minister or home minister,
or failing that a senior air force official, will
make the call.
The anti-hijack policy also
clarifies what the government will do in the event
of a foreign-registered aircraft getting hijacked
in Indian skies. It states that every effort will
be made to ensure the aircraft's safe and quick
exit from Indian airspace and fighter aircraft
would escort the hijacked plane. Taking note of
India's international obligations, the policy goes
on to say that in exceptional circumstances, such
as if the aircraft were low on fuel, the plane
would be allowed to land at an Indian airport.
Steps like immobilizing the aircraft, which are
mandatory under the new policy for
Indian-registered aircraft, would not be be taken
until consultation with the country concerned.
Following September 11, 2001, when
terrorists used passenger aircraft as missiles,
several countries have adopted laws providing for
shooting down hijacked aircraft as a last resort.
India is the latest to go for this option.
The hijack policy provides officials with
a clear set of guidelines to follow in the event
of a hijack. Bureaucratic procedures to get
permission for armed action to end a hijack crisis
have been simplified and clarified.
But
the guidelines and procedures notwithstanding,
ultimately the decisions that officials will have
to make will have to rest on sound judgment. An
editorial in the Indian Express warns that the
government "will still have to make tough judgment
calls. It will also have to put in place
mechanisms to ensure that the guidelines it is
laying for the shooting down of aircraft are
strictly adhered to".
The hijack policy
sends out a strong signal to aspiring hijackers
that India will not cave in to their demands. "But
ultimately, its ability to deter hijackers will
depend on India's commitment to actually
implementing it in detail and spirit," a former
Indian Airlines pilot told Asia Times Online. The
Indian government is known to bend rules for its
very important persons. Will the CCS order the
shooting of a "threat aircraft" if such people are
among its passengers?
The hijack policy
adopts a tough approach to terrorism in the skies.
The government will have to signal that in an hour
of crisis, it will not lose its nerve, that in its
actions it will be as robust as its intentions in
the policy. Only then will the policy act as a
deterrent.
Sudha Ramachandran is
an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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