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India denies recovering any dead body from hijacked plane

NEW DELHI: Indian government Saturday denied that any dead body was recovered from the hijacked Indian Airlines Airbus after it returned from Kandahar.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told newsmen here that no dead body was recovered from the plane which had come back from Kandahar. "This is baseless," he said when asked whether the hijackers had killed one of their partners and left the body there.

Last night a report had stated that one of the hijackers had been killed in the plane by his accomplice before they left the aircraft.

On the role of Nepal in the hijacking, Singh said "we do have some information and at the appropriate time it will be made public."

Asked whether there was any Nepali among the hijackers, Singh said all the captors have been identified and there was no Nepali among them.

On the role of Taliban in hijack crisis, he said they had extended constructive cooperation and had assured India that the hijackers and the freed persons will not be given asylum or allowed to stay in Afghanistan for more than ten hours after the release of hostages.

Asked whether India is now ready to give recognition to the Taliban regime, he said "fundamentals of our Afghan policy remain unchanged and diplomatic recognition is not any conferment of any distinction or based on such episode."

Asked about his compulsion to go to Kandahar, Singh said besides ensuring effective implementation of the agreement, his presence was required to receive the hostages as also to take on the spot decisions.

On why had he chosen to have in the same aircraft Masood Azhar and two others, Singh explained that the Kandahar airfield has only rudimentary facilities which had already been overstretched. Sending additional aircraft would not have been advisable.

He termed as "complete misrepresentation and totally unfounded" the suggestion that he was "escorting" the terrorists. "I did not go as a concession."

The minister also denied that there was any pre-condition set by the hijackers or Taliban that his presence was necessary to finalise the deal. APP