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Terrorist linked with Kandahar hijack

Onkar Singh in New Delhi

Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range) K Rajendran said on Monday that Mohammed, leader of the attack on Parliament on December 13, was none other than Sunny Ahmed Qazi alias Burger, who was involved in the hijack of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 to Kandahar in December 1999.

Mohammed Afzal, one of the suspects arrested in Srinagar in the wake of the attack, is understood to have revealed this during his interrogation.

"Afzal, the Jaish-e-Mohammed's coordinator in Delhi, said during a brief interrogation that Mohammed had told him that he was one of the hijackers of IC-814, and that his code name was Burger," Rajendran told rediff.com on telephone from Srinagar.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Chand, in charge of the Delhi special branch heading investigations into the attack on Parliament, told rediff.com that they were in the process of verifying the claim made by Afzal.

Among other things, the police will show pictures of Mohammed to the wife of Ripan Katyal, who was killed by the hijackers of IC-814. 'Burger' is believed to have been the man who stabbed Katyal on that flight.

'Burger' was seen as the mastermind behind the hijacking of IC-814. The other hijackers, identified as Ibrahim Athar, Mistri Zahur Ibrahim, Shakir and Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, are all residents of Pakistan.

Though the Delhi police have arrested four key suspects involved in the attack on Parliament, the pace of investigation continues to be intense. "We have 30 people working on the case and we are racing against time to nail it all down," a senior police officer told rediff.com.

Complete Coverage: The Attack on Parliament

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