Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Naveen Kumar who wrote (10397)	12/31/1999 1:52:00 AM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Unfortunately the malaise seems to have spread beyond the lumpen political elements and into the middle-class of India. I can bet that most, if not every one, of the passengers being held hostage now and their relatives lost no sleep when the Christians were being killed, or when the Muslims were murdered in the hundreds in Bombay in 1992. The only thing that the Indian government and its armed forces seem to be "good" at, especially these last few years, is in persecuting their minorities.

To: Naveen Kumar who wrote (10397)	12/31/1999 8:59:00 AM
From: JPR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Free at last: Hostages flown out of Afghanistan to India. KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Five hijackers walked off an Indian Airlines plane today and fled the airport in waiting vehicles, a peaceful end to a tense eight-day standoff. The armed hijackers drove away in four-wheel drive vehicles, taking with them the two militants and the Islamic cleric they had demanded be freed from Indian jails. The Indians agreed to release the three prisoners and flew them to Afghanistan today in exchange for the freedom of the 155 hostages on the plane. The hostages were leaving the plane and being loaded onto the Indian plane that brought the three prisoners to the southern Afghanistan town of Kandahar. The freed hostages were to be flown to New Delhi, said Erick du Mul, a U.N. official. He would not say where the hijackers and the freed militants were being taken, though it was part of a prearranged plan. The Taliban, the group that rules most of Afghanistan, planned an announcement later on the hijackers and the militants, he said. The hijackers had been demanding the release of 35 militants and Pakistani religious leader Masood Azhar, jailed in India for their fight against Indian rule of the disputed Kashmir territory. However, only three of the prisoners, including Azhar, were taken from jail and flown to Afghanistan. A Muslim cleric, Azhar was the ideologue of the Harkat ul-Ansar, a group on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations. The group is believed to have its training camps in Afghanistan. The other prisoners were Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, chief commander of the rebel group Ul-Umar Mujahideen, and Ahmad Omar Sayed Sheikh, who was held in a New Delhi prison. The standoff was connected to ongoing unrest in Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan. Muslim militants have been waging an insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir, demanding either independence for the mostly Muslim region or union with Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Islamic country. The drama ended shortly after the Indian plane carrying the militants landed in Kandahar. It came to a stop about a half-mile from the hijacked Indian Airlines plane. Four empty buses had been moved onto the airport tarmac, near the hijacked plane. Several wheelchairs and boxes of water were also moved to the edge of the tarmac. About 30 Taliban soldiers took up positions, holding automatic rifles and sitting cross-legged nearby. The hijackers seized Indian Airlines Flight 814 some 40 minutes after it took off from Katmandu, Nepal, on a scheduled flight to New Delhi on Dec. 24. The plane made stops in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates before landing here on Dec. 25. It has been on the tarmac since then, and conditions inside the plane have been steadily worsening. The Taliban, a Muslim fundamentalist movement that controls most of Afghanistan, initially refused to get involved in the negotiations. But they agreed to intercede at India's request. Indian officials opened talks with the hijackers Monday, four days into the standoff, after the hijackers threatened to kill passengers. One Indian hostage had been killed earlier. New Delhi had been under heavy pressure from relatives and supporters of the hostages to bring a peaceful end to the crisis. Most of the hostages are Indian. Passengers who were released earlier said the hijackers stabbed to death Rippan Katyal after he disobeyed orders not to look at them. Earlier in the standoff, the captors freed 28 hostages, and unloaded Katyal's body during the brief stopover in the Emirates. The plane originally carried 178 passengers and 11 crew members. The passengers included 150 Indians, eight Nepalese, one Canadian, one American, four Swiss, four Spaniards, one Belgian, one Japanese, one Australian, one Italian and two French citizens. Four passengers were not listed by nationality.