Angry relatives of passengers held captive in a hijacked Indian Airlines plane clashed with riot police yesterday, stepping up pressure on India's government to act to end the hostage ordeal.
About 70 agitated relatives, accusing the government of mishandling the situation, stormed the crisis management centre in New Delhi and clashed with 75 riot police.
Some relatives organised a sit-in outside the residence of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. Mr Vajpayee invited a group of five inside for talks, police officials said.
Distraught relatives at a hotel near New Delhi airport earlier refused to be pacified at a government briefing on the hijacking, in which 155 passengers were being held under threat of death at Kandahar in southern Afghanistan by five hijackers.
They shouted down officials and demanded the government agree to a demand by the hijackers for India to release an Islamic cleric, Mohammed Azhar Masood, arrested in India-controlled Kashmir in 1994.
"Sixty-seven hours have passed and the passengers are almost dead. What more can the terrorists do before the government decides to take any action?" asked Mr Anil Kumar, whose brother is on the plane.
Dazed government officials stood helplessly as shouting relatives moved threateningly towards the podium.
"We are all like you and the entire nation is with you. The plane is in Kandahar and you know the limitations. We can understand your anger," said Mr Sunil Chopra, joint secretary in the civil aviation ministry.
Frustrated relatives lashed out at the government again at a government news conference yesterday after a plane with a team of Indian negotiators, medical experts and emergency supplies left for Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
They complained the government was not informing them of its moves on a regular basis.
"Had I been informed that the government was sending medicines in a special relief flight, I would have send the exact medicines for my relative on board," shouted Anil Purohit. "You will be responsible if something happens [to my relative]."
Despite the anger, the families urged each other not to give up hope and prayed for the safe return of their family.
The hijackers have killed one passenger and freed 28 after seizing the Airbus A-300 between Kathmandu and New Delhi on Friday.
The plane has since made stops in Amritsar in India, Lahore in Pakistan and Dubai before landing on Saturday in Afghanistan, whose Taleban rulers are not recognised by India.
The Indian government has been heavily criticised for allowing the plane to leave Amritsar on Friday.
"Thirty-nine minutes in Amritsar. If they had been used effectively the nation may have been spared much of the traumatic uncertainty it has had to experience over the fate of flight IC-814 and its terrorised passengers," said the Indian Express daily in an editorial headlined "The Amritsar Bungle".
"Not once in all those 39 minutes was any attempt made to try and open a channel of communication with the hijackers. If commando action against the hijackers was to have been the chosen route, it once again failed. Not once in all those 39 minutes was any attempt made to utilise the services of the country's exclusive Special Action Group," it added.
Said an anguished relative: "I wish some of the senior ministers' sons and daughters were in the plane. Then they would probably have taken some action."
He was referring to an incident involving Ms Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then home minister, Mr Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was kidnapped by Kashmiri militants in 1989.
Meanwhile in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the Pakistani military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, criticised India for allowing the hijacked airliner to leave Amritsar.
He told reporters the Indians were making "baseless" propaganda against Pakistan although they made no attempt to stop the plane.
A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Tariq Altaf, claimed a secret service agent from India's Research and Analysis Wing was on the plane.
Five policemen were killed and at least 14 wounded in separate militant attacks on a security headquarters and a police patrol in the troubled Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, police said.
"So far we have received information that four police personnel were killed and more than 12 others were wounded when militants stormed the SOG [special operations group] headquarters," a police official said.