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Hijack of an Air Seychelles aircraft foiled

Thanks to an alert crewmember, a knife-wielding Indian who tried to hijack an Air Seychelles Boeing 737 with 72 people on board after it took off from Mumbai, was arrested on Monday morning.

The Mumbai police identified the man as Shashi Raj (38), who was issued a passport in Chennai.

He intended to divert the aircraft to another destination, an official of Maldives' civil aviation ministry told PTI on phone from Male. The flight landed on time in Male and later took off for Seychelles as per schedule, he said.

The passenger tried to enter the cockpit of the aircraft, but was stopped by a flight engineer, who was slightly injured in the scuffle that ensued, he said. The passenger was being questioned, he added.

There were 62 passengers and a crew of ten on board.

"The authorities are looking at the investigations from the angle of an attempted seizure of the aircraft," Maldives' Civil Aviation Director General Mehmood Razee said. He said the aircraft was about 150 km away from Male when the hijack bid was made.

Authorities at the Mumbai airport, however, played down the incident.

"I can only say that the civil aviation ministry is in touch with the Maldives government and any information that will come out will be from New Delhi," the Director of the Mumbai airport, Sudhir Kumar, said.

Kumar was briefing reporters along with Sushouan Banerjee, Regional Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Western Region.

Banerjee said that the Commissioner of Security Civil Aviation, T K Mitra, would be coming to Mumbai to investigate the matter.

In another incident, the CISF detained an Indian who was carrying a knife in his hand luggage. The passenger was about to board an Air India flight from Mumbai to Jeddah.

"The only information we have with us is that the passenger is from Kerala and I can only say that the investigation is going on," said Banerjee.

The Central Industrial Security Force took charge of the airport on August 21. The Mumbai police still assists the CISF, but by October 1, 2002, the security would be completely handled by the paramilitary force.

The CISF was constituted in 1968 to provide security and protection to Public Sector Undertakings. However, it was asked to guard airports after the IC-814 was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1999.

With inputs from Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Mumbai

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