A prime accused in the Kandahar hijacking case has claimed that the Indian government orchestrated it to get rid of top Harkat-ul-Mujahideen leaders including Maulana Masood Azhar.

Yusuf Nepali, a key accused in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Kandhar on December 24, 1999, on Wednesday told Special Designated Judge Inderjit Singh Walia that the Centre was finding it hard to curtail the terrorist activities of Azhar and his two accomplices Umar Shaikh and Mohamad Zargar.

He said that the three terrorists, despite being shifted to the Tihar jail from Jammu and Kashmir [Images], were continuing with their terrorist activities and so the government wanted to get rid of them.

He was speaking on record for the first time ever since the initiation of the trial proceedings.

He said the government decided that in case the three terrorists were let off, they could then be killed in an encounter and so they were freed from prison but later exchanged for passengers of the hijacked aircraft at Kandahar.