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IA hijack trial to begin soon

Ashok Tuteja in Dubai

The trial of those arrested in connection with last year's Christmas-eve Indian Airlines plane hijacking case will begin soon at the Patiala judicial court in Punjab.

''The Central Bureau of Investigation has designated courts in each state and, as the hijacked aircraft landed first in Amritsar in Punjab prior to heading outside the country, the case has to be filed in Punjab itself,'' according to R N Sawani, CBI Joint Secretary, who heads the two-member CBI team investigating the case.

The CBI team is in Dubai to compile evidence in the case in which the Delhi-bound Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu was hijacked as it entered Indian airspace and was first diverted to Amritsar and Lahore before landing at the Al Minhad Airbase near Dubai.

The hijackers of the plane stabbed to death one passenger, Rupin Katyal, and released 27 others, most of them women and children, in Dubai before taking the plane to Kandahar in Afghanistan after getting it refuelled. The hijacking eventually ended a week later when the Indian government set free some hardcore militants to secure the safe release of the passengers.

Gulf News quoted Sawani as saying that the CBI team had finished filing the report in the court and has also handed over those arrested to the judicial court.

''We are here to tie up some loose ends so that the trial can begin,'' he said, adding +we have not met any UAE officials but have restricted our work to our missions over here.''

Sawani said, ''We are trying to get on record the exact details from the time the Indian mission received the body of Rupin Katyal up to the release of the 27 passengers.''

He said, ''Although everyone is aware of these happenings, it is necessary to secure official evidence which can be produced in a court of law.''

The CBI official said ''we have finished filing the report in the court and have also handed over those arrested to the judicial court. The evidence that we have collected in Dubai will assist the proceedings further.''

UNI

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