Indian Hostages Recall Hijackers

Wednesday, January 02, 2000 8:40 AM EST

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Chief, Burger, Doctor .... That's how the Indian hostages remembered three of the five hijackers after spending eight days in captivity.

The Chief spoke in Hindi, India's national language, and mostly stayed in the cockpit from where he negotiated with an Indian team at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan.

``I don't want you to be glum. I want smile on your faces,'' Chief told his hostages after the plane had landed in Kandahar after stopping over at Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai.

This was recalled Sunday by Rajendra Kumar Goud, copilot of the Indian Airlines Airbus which was hijacked on a flight from the Nepalese capital Katmandu to New Delhi.

The next in line was a man who introduced himself as ``Burger.'' He spoke in English and he rarely budged from outside the cockpit, said Daman Soni, one of the 155 passengers who were held by the hijackers until Friday.

``This man would get information from the Chief and then pass it on to others,'' The Hindustan Times newspaper quoted Soni as saying. ``One day he was in a good mood and told us that he had a daughter born two months ago.''

The most cruel of the lot was the one whom the hijackers addressed as ``Doctor.'' He killed an Indian passenger, Rupin Katyal, by slashing his throat with a knife for defying instructions not to look at the hijackers, Soni said.

``Doctor'' inflicted knife wounds on another Indian passenger, Satnam Singh, but he survived. ``He was extremely cruel and he slapped my son, who is suffering from a kidney ailment, because he tried to look outside from the plane window,'' Soni said.

The fourth hijacker, who appeared to be the youngest of the five, was addressed as ``Shankar.

``He was well-built and told us that he was a boxer. He was a nice person and sometimes he even cracked jokes. He once recited a couplet and it appeared that negotiations with the Indian government were going on the right track,'' Soni said.

The fifth hijacker was referred to as Bhola, a Hindu name.

``Bye, Allah Ne Chaha to phit milenge (God willing we shall meet again),'' one of the hijackers told a hostage in Urdu as they began disembarking from the Indian Airlines plane on Friday, ending the hijacking drama.

Another hostage was told: ``See you. We will be back soon. This is the only beginning of our war against the Indian government.''