‘No question of al Qaeda’: Diplomat blames Pakistan amid ‘Kandahar Hijack’ row

‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ row: Amid the controversy over the new Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack,’ former Indian high commissioner to Islamabad Gopalaswami Parthasarathy blamed Pakistan for the hijack and said that al Qaeda was not involved in the hijacking, India Today reported.
 Riddled with controversy, ‘The Kandahar Hijack’ has been accused of giving a clean chit to Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI). Reports suggest that it links the hijackers with terrorists in Afghanistan and al Qaeda.
In an interview, the former diplomat accusing Pakistan of being behind the attack said, “It was totally Pakistani involvement. The terrorists involved were Pakistanis, the terrorists released were Pakistanis. There is no question of al Qaeda, that is the farthest thing to say,” India Today reported.
Gopalaswami Parthasarathy contended that the Afghanistan-based terror group did not have a good relationship with Pakistan. This hinders the chances of al Qaeda carrying out the hijack operation. Suspecting some individual terrorists from Pakistan, he asserted that the “Taliban then was an extension of the ISI.”
Describing the Pakistani government’s response as “duplicitous”, he accused the country of failing to match its actions with its promises. He further alleged that Pakistan delayed his flight from Islamabad to Lahore when he decided to visit the hijacked plane.
“They assured us they would act appropriately, yet they did not follow through. When I attempted to dispatch my officer to Kandahar during the hijacking, the Pakistani government engaged in various delaying tactics,” India Today quoted the former diplomat as saying.
Targeting Pakistan’s spy agency, he said that it had a very close relationship with the involved terrorist organisation and collaborated throughout the hijacking. The hijacked flight was first diverted to Lahore, Amritsar and Dubai before it finally landed in Afghanistan’s Kandahar.