New Delhi: Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim, one of the hijackers of the IC-814 Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi in 1999, was shot dead in Pakistan’s Karachi, government sources said. The Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist, who was living under a false identity “Zahid Akhund” for many years, was shot twice in the head by unidentified gunmen at point-blank range in Karachi’s Akhtar Colony on March 1.
Mistry was the owner of Crescent Furniture located inside Akhtar Colony in Karachi. According to reports, Rauf Asgar had joined the funeral procession of Akhund in Karachi. Rauf is the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s operational chief and brother of the terrorist organisation’s founder Masood Azhar.
The IC-814 aircraft of Indian Airlines, with 179 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was hijacked by five terrorists from Nepal on December 24, 1999. The plane made a long arduous journey to Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai before making a strategic stop at Kandahar in Afghanistan which was then under the Taliban’s control.
The hijackers had executed one passenger, 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, and finally negotiated the release of dreaded Islamist terrorists Masood Azhar Alvi, Syed Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar from Indian jails on December 31, 1999, in exchange for the hostages. Mistry was reportedly the one who had stabbed and killed Rupin Katyal.
The Kandahar hijacking was one of the most dramatic hostage crises the country has ever seen.
