IC-814 Victim Rupin Katyal gets justice after 20 years

Insight Bureau: After 20 years of the devastating hijack of Indian Airways flight IC-814, finally Rupin Katyal’s family received justice. Recently, hijacker Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim aka Jamali was gunned down in Karachi, Pakistan by an unidentified gunmen on 1st March.

Rupin Katyal, a 25 year-old man from India  was brutally stabbed in the chest by Mistry Zahoor on December 25 using a sharp object in the flight later his body was then recovered from the hijacked flight in UAE. Katyal was killed in order to pressurize the Indian government to agree to the terrorist’s terms.

Rupin along with his wife were returning to Delhi after honeymoon in Kathmandu on that day.

Zahoor Mistry was an operative of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) which was an anti-India terror group operating out of Pakistan and Bangladesh then. He was among the five hijackers of IC 814, which was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan on December 24, 1999. Mistry’s funeral was attended by senior leaders of JeM.

With the death of Zahoor Ibrahim now only two out of five Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) hijackers are alive in Pakistan.

As per the counter-terrorism experts, only Ibrahim Azhar and Shahid Akhtar Sayed are alive in lawless Khyber Paktunkhwa area of Pakistan. It is said that one of the five hijackers died due to natural cause and another was killed by Indian security forces during the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament.

On December 24, 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was hijacked by Zahoor Ibrahim and his associates after it took off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal which was enrouting to Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi.

The flight had180 passengers including the crew members.

After reaching Afghanistan the-then Taliban government joined the negotiations for the release of passengers only if the Indian Government agrees to release Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar who all then were affiliated with terror group HuM.

The three terrorists were released and was given a safe passage by the Taliban to Pakistan.

After the release, Azhar laid the foundation of one of the most dreaded  terror organisation named the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). JeM is said to be responsible for multiple terror attacks in India, including the 2016 attack on Pathankot Air Base and the 2019 Pulwama attack.