The Indian Express on Sunday reported an incident that took place on January 30, when a Kashmiri youth sitting in a Kingfisher plane handed over a note to the air hostess trigerring a hijack scare.
The airport security staff first thought it was a hijack attempt, but in the end it turned out to be only love — and a little innocent mischief. And they let the flirtatious young man at the centre of the drama — a student of engineering from Sopore in Kashmir — go.
But for several hours on January 30, the nation's security establishment held its breath as a potential hijack alert was sounded for a Kingfisher flight bound for Srinagar from Delhi.
The Air Force was alerted, commandos were put on standby, and the Union Home Minister personally monitored the developments.
Sources said the story, kept under wraps for over two months now, unfolded as follows:
As the aircraft approached Srinagar, a 21-year-old Kashmiri man sitting towards the front of the cabin handed one of the airhostesses a note scribbled on a piece of tissue. It said, “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die”, and “I am not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens”. Under the quotations, he had drawn a couple of large smileys.
The airhostess panicked. She informed the captain, and the crew immediately suspected the man was a potential hijacker or terrorist.
The captain alerted the sky marshal on board. The marshal, sources said, wanted the aircraft to be taken back to Delhi. But the plane had already entered the Valley by then, and the captain decided to land at Srinagar. A hijack alert was sounded. The IAF was put on alert, and the SP, Anti-Hijacking, Srinagar, Bakir Samoon and other top police and intelligence officials were asked to prepare to tackle a suspected hijacker. The suspect was carrying an object that resembled a pen, but it could be a two-bullet firearm, Samoon was told.
Security agencies were, meanwhile, trying to figure out the suspect's ‘real identity'. In their communications with the police, the crew of the aircraft had pronounced the suspect's name — Zargar — as ‘Sarkar', and security agencies were weighing the possibility of having to deal with a Naxal on board. The aircraft landed, and was taken to a secure area on the tarmac. Anti-hijack security personnel surrounded the plane. Passengers — who had not been informed about the emergency — were asked to use the rear exit to get off. The idea was to keep the suspect — sitting in one of the front rows — back in the aircraft with as few passengers as possible.
Once the man emerged from the aircraft, however, none of the things that were feared happened. He submitted himself to a thorough search with no resistance, and no weapon was found on him. After questioning him, the Jammu and Kashmir Police confirmed he was from Sopore — of late the nerve centre of militancy in the Valley — but harmless.
He was a student of engineering outside the state, and coming home for a visit. Sources said investigations established the man had been infatuated with the airhostess, and had passed her a silly “love note”.
“He told us that he was trying to impress the airhostess and begin a conversation with her,” said a senior police officer closely involved with the operations. “There was nothing malicious. We checked his emails, his phone records, and got his antecedents checked through various agencies. We found that the boy was telling the truth.” The young man was later handed over to his parents.
