KARACHI: Three convicted hijackers of a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft were hanged in Hyderabad and Karachi prisons on Thursday on the 17th anniversary of the country’s nuclear tests in 1998, which had been opposed by the hijackers.

Sixty-year-old Shahsawar and 47-year-old Sabir were executed in Hyderabad prison and Shabbir, 45, in the Central Prison in Karachi. Their bodies were handed to their relatives who took them to their towns for burial.

Relatives of Shahsawar and Sabir took their bodies to Mirpurkhas and Tando Yousuf, respectively. The body of Shabbir was taken to Balochistan.

“Their death sentences should have been converted into life imprisonment because the three convicts had already spent 17 years in jail,” Noor Mohammad, a relative of Shahsawar, said while talking to reporters.

On May 24, 1998, the three hijacked a Karachi-bound PIA aircraft minutes after it had taken off from Gwadar, asking the pilot to take the plane to India.

However, a dramatic situation emerged when the pilot landed the aircraft at Hyderabad airport but told the hijackers that it was an Indian airfield in Bhuj area.

The airport officials also managed to convince the hijackers that they were in Indian territory and their demands had been conveyed to the Pakistani authorities.

Finally, personnel of law-enforcement agencies with the help of intelligence operatives arrested the three hijackers who said they had taken the extreme measure to highlight the plight of the people of Balochistan in Chagai area where the nuclear test was later conducted.

In August 1998, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Hyderabad sentenced the three accused to death. Their appeals against the ATC verdict were rejected by the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court.

After President Mam­noon Hussain reje­cted their mercy petitions on May 12, the ATC issued black warrants of the three convicts on May 21.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2015

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