Mukhtar Ahmed in Srinagar

Dr Srinivas, senior superintendent of police, Srinagar, had a clear brief. Reach the central jail around midnight. Collect the Al-Umar Mujaheedin's former chief commander, Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, and senior Hizbul Mujaheedin leader, 'General' Moosa. Escort them to Jammu by the break of dawn on December 31, 1999, for their onward passage to Afghanistan. Where the two militant leaders would be exchanged for the hostages aboard IC 814, parked on a freezing tarmac in Kandahar.

But the police chief had not allowed for the obduracy of the jailer of the high security prison. There was no way he was going to free these men without explicit, written permission. "We are on a top secret mission; there obviously cannot be any documentation," explained Srinivas and Manohar Singh, superintendent of police, Special Operations Group, Srinagar.

The jailer remained unimpressed.

The wires started humming. In New Delhi, home and foreign ministry officials started to panic. So did Research and Analysis Wing Director A S Daulat, who had rushed to Jammu to personally collect Masood Azhar, the other militant on the hijackers's wishlist. The clock was ticking inexorably closer to the deadline set by the hijackers for the swap.

As the standoff between the jailer and the police chief continued, the pressure was starting to tell on Kashmir range police chief, Dr Ashok Bhan, who was monitoring the situation from his home. The state chief secretary and the state home commissioners were demanding the jailer "be taught a lesson."

Finally, a desperate Bhan grabbed his walkie-talkie and snapped: "Get the detenues. Arrest the jailer if he stops you. Tell him to hand over the two detenues or I am coming myself to arrest this jailer."

After three long hours, the jailer finally relented. Zargar and Moosa, two of his prized inmates, were handed over to the agitated police officers.

A year later, the inmates of the Srinagar central jail can still vividly recall that nerve-wracking drama. Piquantly, 32 of the detenues who appeared on the initial list of the hijackers are still prisoners in various jails in Jammu and Kashmir.

Some of these names included Master Ahsan Dar, Omar Sayeed, Nasrullah Mansoor Largyal, Naved Iqbal, Muzamil Ahmad Dar, Sayeed Mehboob, Naseer Ikram, Suhail Ahmed, Saifullah Khalid, Ruhail Ahmad, Sofi Jamal, Nasrullah Mansoor, Sultan Ahmad, Mohammad Farooq Raja, Syed Khaliq Hussain, Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, Basharat Ali, Syed Sajad Bukhari, Waqar Shah, Jaffar Ali, Mohammad Syed Khan, Abdul Hai, Mohammad Yussuf, Alam Khan, Sultan Ahmed, Zulfikar Ali, Nasir Mohammad, Mohammad Hassan, Mohammad Arif -- all foreign militants who were lodged in various jails here.

"The local as well as the foreign militants are arrested and later detained under the Public Safety Act," says a senior police officer. "While the locals can be released on parole, the foreign militants are not released."

Over a hundred foreign militants, including those whose release had been demanded by the hijackers, are presently lodged in various jails in the state, he asserts. "No foreign militant whose release had been demanded by the hijackers have been released." Except, of course, in 1993, when two PoK militants, who had surrendered after they left the Hazratbal shrine, were escorted to the border and released.

Series Design: Dominic Xavier

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The Hijack: One Year On