Arrested Pak diplomat linked to IC 814 hijacking

NEW DELHI: Pakistani diplomat Mohammed Arshad Cheema, who was arrested on Thursday with 16 kg of RDX in Kathmandu, is believed to have been linked with the December 1999 hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814.
Home ministry sources here said on Friday that Cheema, the first secretary at the embassy in Kathmandu, was one of the two Pakistani officials who had met the hijackers at Tribhuvan airport shortly before IC 814 took off for Delhi on December 24, 1999.
On Thursday, the Kathmandu police discovered the explosive material in a car that was being used by Cheema. He was apparently at the home of a fellow-Pakistani, who is not an embassy official, in Baneshwor in downtown Kathmandu when the police came calling.
Home ministry sources here said Cheema''s arrest corroborated their long-standing claim that Nepal in general, and Kathmandu in particular, is being used by Pakistan''s ISI operatives.
Intelligence sources told The Times of India here on Friday that there is evidence that on the evening of December 24, 1999, a Pakistan embassy official car had pulled up at Tribhuvan airport shortly before the Delhi-bound Indian Airlines flight was scheduled to take off. Among the car''s passengers were Mohammed Arshad Cheema, his deputy, Zia Ansari, and Nepali citizen Abdul Rias Khan. The vehicle''s registration number apparently figures in the log book at the airport entrance.
Airport officials had also noticed that the first secretary carried a briefcase into the departure concourse. The briefcase went unchecked because Cheema and company used their diplomatic immunity to avoid frisking or rummaging by airport officials. One of the Pakistani officials handed over the briefcase to a person who, it was later ascertained, was one of the hijackers of IC 814. It is presumed that the briefcase contained arms and ammunition the hijackers used to commandeer the flight.
Intelligence sources here say that Cheema is one of the ISI''s men in the Pakistan embassy in Kathmandu. He was also believed to have been actively involved in the supply of counterfeit Indian currency, specially fake Rs 500 notes.
In October 1998, Yakeer Singh, a Punjab militant who was arrested in Kathmandu with 20 kg of RDX, told the police that Cheema had handed him the packet, sources said.