Josy Joseph

The terrified passengers of
Flight 814, which was hijacked last Christmas, have hopefully put those dark days behind them. Captain Devi Sharan is back in the cockpit. While the hijackers and the released terrorists are back to plotting more terror games.

But the government's Crisis Management Group, which was blamed for most of the faux pas during the crisis, has not changed a wee bit. A year after the hijacking, the government's attempt to review the contingency plan for a hijack remains incomplete.

In fact, a final draft yet of the revised plan is yet to see the light of day, despite the civil aviation ministry incorporating change after change and the babus holding meeting after meeting.

When the hijacked aircraft was parked at Amritsar for more than an hour, the CMG wasted precious time in taking crucial decisions, allowing the hijackers to fly out of Indian airspace and stretch the crisis over a week. They finally brought the government down on its knees and forced it to release three dreaded terrorists.

IC 814 was hijacked on December 24 at 1630. But it took over an hour for the CMG -- comprising then Cabinet secretary Prabhat Kumar, secretaries of home affairs, defence, civil aviation, foreign affairs and the director generals of National Security Guard, among others -- to gather. And as the meeting progressed, one fact emerged very clearly.

Though the contingency plan clearly states that the CMG should immediately meet and take future decisions in consultation with the prime minister and the Cabinet in case of a hijack, it does not spell out specific roles. For instance, neither the defence secretary nor foreign secretary had any ideas on what they were supposed to do in this case.

The CMG discussed and debated various options, but was unable to arrive at a quick decision, admits a senior official who was involved in the crisis. "We had not defined the exact role of each secretary or each member of the CMG. The contingency plan had only said the CMG should meet and decide future actions. We lost a lot of time in debating and discussing various aspects."

In fact, sources point out, the CMG did not even have basic facilities such as a time graph to the various time zones over which the plane was flying or phone numbers of important people in those nations.

After the hijacking, the civil aviation ministry initiated an exercise to revamp the contingency plan. Senior officials, including those from Bureau of Civil Aviation security, have held several meetings till now, sources said. A committee of secretaries comprising almost all those who are in the CMG have also been constituted to review the hijack contingency plan to be prepared by the civil aviation ministry.

Last month, the civil aviation secretary, the director general of the Bureau of Civil Aviation security and other senior officials met the Cabinet secretary to give shape to various suggestions from the ministry. Sources said the Cabinet secretary has given further suggestions, which the ministry now plans to incorporate.

Among the key proposals: A clear definition of each member's role in the CMG. "The confusion regarding the role of each member of the CMG will be removed. Now each one will know what he is supposed to do," says a senior official.

Besides, each member of the CMG will also be asked to create a back-up team in his ministry/department who will assist him in the event of a hijack. The back-up teams, ready with all relevant data like phone numbers, maps and contacts that might be required in case of a crisis, will rush to the CMG office at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan near Safdarjung airport, in case of a hijack.

"When the foreign secretary wants to call the ambassador of a foreign country, he needs to immediately have the phone numbers of its ambassador in India, our embassy in that country, details on time difference between both the countries, things like that," a senior official points out. He admitted that these trivial matters "delayed some key decisions" during last year's hijack.

As the crisis stretched on, yet another glaring gap in India's hijack crisis management was exposed. India did not have well defined negotiators. So, the embarrassed Cabinet, confused CMG and confusing intelligence agencies began yet another time-consuming debate: Who should be sent to Kandahar to negotiate with the hijackers? What should be their qualification? Should they be diplomats? Or tough-talking cops? A minister?

After much debate, the choices were narrowed down to Joint Secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs, Vivek Katju, and Additional Director of the Intelligence Bureau Ajit K Doval.

To the establishment's good fortune, both officials were balanced men who faced several crisis situations in their careers. But even as the duo reached Kandahar and began negotiations, it was clear they did not carry a proper political mandate. Nor were they aware of the thinking in Delhi’s political establishment. This confusion added to the problem.

Post-hijack, the government has been talking about defining its negotiators, their mandate and other related issues. These also could find its way into the contingency plan.

But, as of now, the plan is waiting, buried in some files, somewhere in the civil aviation ministry. Given that intelligence reports indicate a heightened threat to Indian aircraft from various militant groups, one can only hope the next hijack occurs after the contingency plan is in place.

The Hijack: One Year On