One hostage released; conditions on hijacked plane worsen

By HAROON RASHID

The Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan --- As 160 passengers still trapped on a hijacked Indian Airlines jet sat in deteriorating conditions Sunday, a United Nations official negotiated with the captors for more than an hour, securing the release of just one passenger.

Troops from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia delivered food to passengers and reported that the air in the plane "is very bad. It smells like people have been sick," said Mohammed Khiber, a civil aviation authority spokesman.

The shades in the plane remained drawn, and the engines were running, Afghan officials said.

The plane, which landed Saturday in Kandahar after making brief stops in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, was surrounded in the late afternoon by several Taliban vehicles. Soldiers, who had earlier circled the aircraft, had been removed.

Erick de Mul, the U.N. coordinator for Afghanistan, negotiated with the hijackers by radio for more than an hour Sunday. He managed only to secure the release of an Indian passenger, identified as Anil Khurana.

Khurana, a diabetic who had required medical treatment a day earlier, was the first passenger released since the captors freed 27 hostages and unloaded the body of one slain passenger during a stopover in the United Arab Emirates on Friday.

Appearing gaunt and tired, Khurana refused to speak to reporters and buried his head beneath a blanket when a photographer tried to take his picture at the airport. Khurana has said he won't return to India until all the remaining passengers and crew, including his brother, are released.

The hijackers refused to release the widow of the slain hostage, Rippan Katyal, who had been returning to India from his honeymoon in Nepal. India had asked for the release of his bride, Rachna, to attend her husband's funeral Sunday.

The plane has been refueled and is free to leave, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told the Associated Press.

De Mul flew from Pakistan to the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban headquarters, earlier Sunday. He is heading a three-person U.N. delegation there.

Russia on Sunday urged that a special session of the U.N. Security Council be held to discuss the hijacking. The earliest such a meeting could be held is today.

"It is necessary for the Security Council members to discuss the dangerous situation in the region," Russia's first deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Gennady Gatilov, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The Taliban sought the United Nations' assistance after the hijackers demanded the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, a Pakistani religious leader, and several Kashmiri fighters. All are in prison in India.

India's ambassador to the United States, Naresh Chandra, told CNN on Sunday his government was keeping its options open, "but our policy not to negotiate with the terrorists in this kind of situation holds."

Indian officials have said there are five hijackers. Armed with grenades, pistols and knives, they seized the plane about 40 minutes after it took off from Nepal heading for New Delhi, India, on Friday. It snaked across western Asia and into the Middle East, stopping at several airports and being turned away by several countries before making its latest stop in southern Afghanistan.

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