| kancha |
Posted
on 09-Nov-01 01:32 PM
ATHMANDU: Nepal has imposed strict security around the Kathmandu international airport after receiving information that a cell linked to Osama Bin Laden was planning to hijack a Singaporean airliner and crash it into New Delhi, officials said Friday.
Chennai police told Nepalese authorities they had "credible information" a Bin Laden cell was planning such an attack, said Jaya Diwan, general secretary of Nepal's foreign airline operators' association.
"We are taking precautionary measures so that this kind of ugly thing does not happen," Diwan said.
Diwan said Nepal had received all its information about the plot from India.
Officials said that although the threat was made to Singapore Airlines, which runs flights from Singapore to Madras to Kathmandu, all air carriers in Kathmandu were being told to take extra precautions.
The Singapore Airlines flight from Madras to Kathmandu was due to arrive here in the early afternoon Friday.
Bishnu Subedi, executive secretary of the Board of Airlines Representatives Nepal (BARN). said they received a letter from Chennai civil aviation authorities warning them of the plan.
"The letter written by the civil aviation authority in Chennai, warns that Bin Laden's men are currently in Kathmandu and there is a possibility of hijacking of an airplane from Nepalese sky and hitting some important targets in New Delhi," Subedi said.
"The aviation authority in Chennai received the threats from some unknown people. The airport security has informed BARN about the letter and we have circulated the information to all the 13 carriers flying from Kathmandu," Subedi said.
"The threat may be real or a hoax, but we must take precautionary measures at such a sensitive time," he added.
Managing Director of the Royal Nepal Airlines Rajesh Raj Dali said the airlines has tightened its security after receiving the threat.
"In fact, we have already intensified security watch after the September 11 incident," he said, adding that the civil aviation authority has taken necessary steps to tighten the airport security including ladder point frisking.
All passengers entering Kathmandu airport were being thoroughly checked, officials said.
The Kathmandu Post also quoted an anonymous letter received by the authorities as saying that Bin Laden's men were already in Nepal's capital and planned to hijack a plane and crash it into one of three targets in India -- the US embassy in New Delhi, the office of the Prime Minister or his residence.
The English-language daily said the handwritten letter was mailed from Chennai, and warned authorities of a "possible plot by members of Osama Bin Laden's group" to hijack an airliner flying from Kathmandu.
The Union Home Ministry in New Delhi said it had no information about such a threat.
Kedar Koirala, a senior security official at the Tribhuvan International Airport here said body searches of passengers had been intensified and baggage was being physically searched after an X-ray examination. "A security search inside the aircraft is also being conducted when necessary," Koirala added.
Nepal and India were among the countries that gave early support to the US-led strikes on Afghanistan, which is sheltering Saudi-born Bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 suicide hijack attacks on the United States.
Kathmandu has also pledged to open its airspace and refuelling facilities to US aircraft conducting raids on targets in Afghanistan.
Kashmiri militants hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999. The plane was on a flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi. A passenger was killed in the hijack and India freed three jailed militants.
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