The Jammu and Kashmir police on Thursday said that it has arrested a top militant from eastern district of Kishtwar who is reported to have been involved in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet.
The militant arrested is 49-year-old Merajuddin Dand alias Javed Ahmad, who was living in Nepal where he “recruited youth for militant attacks”, the police said.
The plane en route to Delhi from Kathmandu with 180 people on board was on December 24, 1999 flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan, from where the hijackers negotiated the release of militants.
The militants swapped for the passengers of flight IC-814 included Maulana Masood Azhar who later founded the Jaish-e-Muhammad, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is accused of later killing American journalist Daniel Pearl, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, a Srinagar resident who headed the Al-Omar Mujahideen outfit.
Dand is a resident of Krankashivan locality of Sopore town, 48 km northwest of Srinagar, and, as per the police, is a close associate of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin who is also chairman of United Jihad Force (UJF), a PoK-based alliance of militant outfits. Besides the Hizb, Dand has been associated with some other Kashmiri militant outfits, including Islamic Front and Muslim Mujahideen, the police said.
Dand is also believed to have been involved in the 1996 bombings at Delhi’s busy Lajpat Nagar market that killed 13 people and was reportedly in touch with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, officials said.
He had crossed over to PoK first in 1987 to receive training in using weapons and subversion and after his release from jail in the Valley in 1992, he relocated to Delhi.
Police officials said that though the investigation into Dand’s role in the 1999 hijacking is still being investigated, he is believed to have provided logistical support to hijackers. None of the five hijackers who had also killed one passenger during the seven-day standoff was caught.