Government of Pakistan Denies Hijackers Entered Country
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The foreign minister of Pakistan insisted Sunday that five hijackers who disappeared in Afghanistan were not in his nation.
“I can tell you with full responsibility that the hijackers have not entered Pakistan,” Abdus Sattar told editors of Pakistan’s Urdu-language newspapers. “Under international [laws] dealing with hijacking, we will arrest them and put them before court.”
It was the latest Pakistani government denial of Indian allegations that the hijackers and three militants whose release they secured from Indian jails had fled to Pakistan. The terrorists were given 10 hours to leave Afghanistan as a condition of their releasing 155 hostages they held for eight days aboard an Indian Airlines jet.
The hijackers and their colleagues were linked to militants fighting to expel the Indian government from the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir.
“If Pakistan is really innocent as it pretends to be, let it hand over the hijackers, along with the militants, back to India and prove its innocence,” said Venkaiah Naidu, general secretary of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
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