Kandhar hijacking accused pleads inoocence in special court

PATIALA: Dalip Kumar Bhujel, co-accused of helping the hijackers of the Indian Airlines, flight IC-814 that flew from Kathmandu to Kandhar disposed in special court here that he was falsly implicated in the case being a soft target.

He said that by doing so the government of India wanted to chuck out the terrorists, but also wanted to keep its image clean amongst the international community. He said that all three accused including Yusuf Nepali and Abdul Latif had been falsely implicated in the said case.

In his plea in the anti-hijacking court of special designated judge Inderjit Singh Walia, he said that so far the central bureau of investigation had failed to complete the investigations, and even the hijacking story presented by the CBI was improvable.

In his six-page defence plea moved by Dalip Kumar Bhujel through his counsel H. V. Rai, he said that the government of India wanted to get rid of the leaders of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, who had been let off to free the hostages. He said that the government had decided that in case the three terrorists were let off, they could be either killed in an encounter or by their own terrorist activities. 

Bhujel also contended that it was an unfair trial as all proceedings were being conducted either in English or in Punjab, and both the languages were beyond his understanding. He said that prosecution had charged him of supplying three grenades and pistols to the hijackers, but the prosecution witness Capt. Devi Saran went on record stating that five hijackers were holding five pistols and five grenades besides, 100 grenades were found lying in the cockpit of IC-814. He said that prosecution had failed to explain from where these grenades were procured by the hijackers.