Hijacking means unlawful seizure of air-crafts, According to Dr.

Sauri Shubber,
hijacking, in its widest sense, is an act against the safety of civil aviation and
resembles piracy, Article 1 of the Hague Convention of 1970 provide the
following. - "Any person who on board an aircraft in flight :- (a) unlawfully, by
force or threat thereof, or by any other form of intimidation, seizes, or exercises
control of that aircraft or attempts to perform any such act, or ( b) is an
accomplice of a person who performs or attempt to perform any such act,
commits an offence. .
" Essentials.-Tokyo Convention 1963 provides following essentials of hijacking
(1) The force or threat must have been unlawfully used or some sort of
intimidation must have been used;
(2) Such an act must be with a view to seizing the aircraft or exercising ol over it;
and
(3) Such act must have been committed on board an aircraft in flight. The Hague
Convention of 1970 added that an accomplice of a person wo performs or
attempts to perform any such act.
Development of the law.- In order to fight with this menace of hijacking the Tokyo
Convention was adopted in 1963 which, provides for the punishment of the
hijackers. Despite of this Convention, there was no decline in the number of the
incidents. India was also a party to this convention. With a view to giving effect to
the provisions of this Convention, India passed Tokyo Convention Act, 1975.
The Tokyo Convention of 1963 could not solve the problem and the incidents of
hijacking continued to increase. To deal with this problem, another Convention
was passed in 1971 in Hague. This Convention provided for the deterrent
punishment to the hijacker. It also provided that the offences shall be deemed to
be included as extraditable offences. Montreal Convention, 1971.- Another
Convention was adopted in September, 1971. This Convention was an
improvement over the Hague Convention, as it widened the concept of offences
of hijacking.
Hijacking of Indian Aircraft.- On January 30, 1971 an Indian Aircraft was hijacked
and taken to Lahore. Pakistan Government instead of arresting the hijackers, had
given them shelter. India demanded the hijackers but this demand was turned
down by the Pakistan, in retaliation, India banned all flights of Pakistani aircraft’s
over Indian territory. Pakistan Government Complained the International Civil
Aviation Organisation against this ban. India's contention was that I.C.A.O. bas no
jurisdiction to hear the case. But his contention was rejected by the President of
the Council. Afterwards Pakistan withdrew the case from the I.C.A.O. and
subsequently Pakistani Over-flight over Indian territory were resumed.
In 1976, again another Indian aircraft was hijacked and taken to Pakistan. This
time, Pakistan Government arrested the hijackers and returned de passengers
and aircraft to India. Pakistani assured India that deterrent action would be taken
against the hijackers but subsequently released them on the pound that there is
no sufficient evidence to justify their offence. Two cases of hijacking took place in
September, 1981 and July, 1984, yet another case of hijacking took place on 5th
September, 1986 when four armed terrorists seized a Pan American Jumbo Jet
with 399 Passengers and Cabin crew board at Karachi airport. Later on Pakistani
Commandos engaged the furry hijackers. In the terrible shoot out that ensued, 18
persons were killed and over 100 injured. Indian Prime Minister blamed Pakistani
authorities for killing. The U.K. press backed India's accusation, It was due to
wrongful handling of the situation and blunder committed by Pakistani authorities
that the Karachi tragedy occurred.
In 1999, again Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814 was an Indian
Airlines Airbus A300 en route from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal to Indira
Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India on Friday, 24 December 1999, when it
was hijacked and flown to several locations before landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Harkat-ul-
Mujahideen was accused of the hijacking with the support and active assistance from ISI. After
negotiation , The
hijackers demanded release of three militants – Mushtaq
Ahmed Zargar,Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar.

Having no option left, then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh went Kandahar

along with the three terrorists. After the three militants landed in Kandahar,
the hostages aboard the flight were freed. On 31 December 1999, the freed
hostages were flown back through special plane. The five hijackers departed
with a Taliban hostage to ensure their safe passage.