Terrorist who hijacked Indian plane IC-814 shot dead in Pakistan’s Karachi
Categories: DAILY NEWS
Zahoor Mistry, one of the five terrorists who hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999, was killed in Pakistan, according to several media reports.The reports claimed that Mistry was killed in an attack by two bike-borne assailants on March 1 in Karachi city. The police suspect that the killing was a well-planned execution.Pakistani news outlet Geo TV confirmed the death and reported the murder of a "businessman" in Karachi without mentioning any details.According to reports, Mistry was living under new identity ‘Zahid Akhund’ and was running a furniture shop in the city. According to police, four pistol shells were recovered from the spot.With this killing, only two Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) hijackers are now alive in Pakistan —Ibrahim Azhar, elder brother of Masood Azhar and Rauf Asghar.The local media reports, citing an intelligence official, said that top Jaish-e-Mohammad leadership, including Rauf Asgar, attended the funeral prayer for ‘Akhund’ in Karachi.On December 24, 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC-814 en route to New Delhi from Kathmandu was hijacked by Pakistan-based terror group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.The flight was hijacked by the terrorists when it was near Lucknow. It was taken to Amritsar for fuelling. It was then taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where passengers and crew remained captive for more than eight days. One Indian passenger, Rupin Katyal (25), was brutally murdered by Mistry on December 25, 1999. His body was retrieved from the hijacked plane in UAE. He along with his wife were returning to Delhi after honeymoon in Kathmandu on that fateful day.The hijack situation ended when the former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government was forced to release three terrorists —Masood Azhar Alvi, Syed Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar — to save the lives of 176 passengers and 15 crew members on board.