According to government sources, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim, one of the hijackers of the IC-814 Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi in 1999, was killed in Karachi, Pakistan. On March 1, an unidentified gunman shot the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist twice in the head at point-blank range in Karachi’s Akhtar Colony, where he had been residing under the alias “Zahid Akhund” for many years.
Crescent Furniture, which was located in Karachi’s Akhtar Colony, was owned by Mistry. Rauf Asgar was said to have attended Akhund’s burial procession in Karachi, according to sources. Rauf is the operational chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed and is Masood Azhar’s brother.
On December 24, 1999, five terrorists from Nepal hijacked Indian Airlines’ IC-814 aircraft, which had 179 passengers and 11 staff members on board. The plane travelled to Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before stopping in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which was then under Taliban rule.
The hijackers had already killed one passenger, Rupin Katyal, and had ultimately secured the release of feared Islamist terrorists Masood Azhar Alvi, Syed Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar from Indian prisons in exchange for the hostages on December 31, 1999. Mistry is said to have stabbed and killed Rupin Katyal.
The thrilling Kandahar hijacking was one of the country’s most dramatic hostage crises.
