Inmate Freed by India Calls Family

Wednesday, January 03, 2000 6:02 AM EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- One of three prisoners freed by India to end an eight-day hijacking crisis in Afghanistan made a telephone call to his family in Pakistan, a family member said today.

Masood Azhar made the call late Friday from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, according to a female member of the family who refused to be identified. The whereabouts of the five hijackers remained a mystery, as did the location of the three men India released from jail in exchange for 155 hostages held aboard Indian Airlines Flight 814.

Azhar, the son of a retired Pakistani school teacher from Bawahalpur in the eastern province of Punjab, was freed along with Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheikh, a Pakistani-born British citizen, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, an Indian from Kashmir.

The three men allegedly have been involved in the bitter and bloody insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir, where militants are fighting for outright independence or union with Islamic Pakistan.

When he telephoned home, Azhar spoke to his father, the family member said.

Azhar and the other two men were brought to southern Afghanistan from India along with Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. Minutes after the three prisoners were handed over to the five hijackers on Friday, they all roared out of the Kandahar airport in a window-blackened vehicle, and the passengers aboard the aircraft were freed.

One Canadian woman among the hostages, Shirley Macklin, said in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Radio from New Delhi, India, that the men who hijacked the Indian Airlines jet were intelligent, well-organized and exceptionally cruel. She said she comforted herself during the ordeal by thinking about her family and doing yoga exercises.

Azhar's father, Ali Baksh Azhar, made no mention of the call late Sunday but said he was relieved that his son was a free man, saying he had been held in an Indian prison since 1994 without being charged. But the elderly Azhar said he also was saddened by the hijacking.

``We feel sorry for the families and for the people on the plane. We pray to God for them. We don't support hijacking,'' said the elder Azhar.

The father of Sheikh, Ahmed Saeed Sheikh, said his son was innocent, but he hasn't heard from him. Sheikh said his family has been hounded by Pakistani intelligence officials since the release of his son.

There have been several reports, many of them contradictory, about the whereabouts of the hijackers and the freed prisoners.

Afghanistan's Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, told The Associated Press today that the agreement reached with the hijackers included a promise that their whereabouts would not be released.

Afghanistan's Taliban leaders gave the hijackers 10 hours to leave the country. The hijackers took a Taliban soldier with them as a hostage and later released him.

India maintains all five hijackers are Pakistanis, although the men were masked throughout the ordeal and their identities have not been independently confirmed.

Pakistan's army-run government has promised to arrest them if they enter Pakistan, but the country's border with Afghanistan is long and virtually impossible to seal.

The freed prisoners were believed to be trying to reach Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan and the flash point of two wars between the hostile neighbors.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today urged major nations of the world, including the United States, to declare Pakistan a terrorist state, saying India had information making it clear that the hijacking was an ``integral part of the Pakistan-backed campaign of terrorism.'' However, he provided no details.

Pakistan has denied involvement and condemned the hijacking.