Held to ransom: The hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814 at Kandahar airport in December 1999. The hijackers hand a paper with their list of demands to a local security official

More than a decade after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814, the government has put forth legislation that seeks to add more teeth to the country’s existing anti-hijacking law.

The Anti-Hijacking Amendment Bill, 2010, which seeks to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982, primarily aims at bringing conspirators and abettors of the offence within the purview of the law and include the death penalty as punishment. The bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in August and thence referred to the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture, which has just submitted its report on the amendments.

As the bill puts it, “whoever, either on his own, or in concert with others” attempts to commit the offence of hijacking, as defined by the law, or “abets the commission of any such act” will also be “deemed to have committed the offence of hijacking”.

What seems to be at the crux of the amendment bill is the inclusion of capital punishment for hijackers. The original act stopped short of the death penalty, restricting itself only to life imprisonment and a fine for the crime. But now Section 4 of the bill specifies, “Whoever commits the offence of hijacking shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to a fine.”

In a statement, civil aviation minister Praful Patel notes that the current law is not strong enough to tackle new situations or even threats of hijacking. “It is necessary to make the extant provisions dealing with hijacking more comprehensive in order to cover all aspects... of hijacking by offenders and conspirators and to make the law more stringent by awarding the death penalty for such offences,” states Patel, explaining why it is imperative to amend the law now. He adds that the Kandahar hijacking in 1999 that resulted in the death of one of the hostages and subsequent attempts worldwide to hijack aircraft and the threat posed by various outlawed groups or organisations have “necessitated a fresh...examination of the preparedness of all concerned to face such exigencies”.

The parliamentary standing committee, headed by CPI-M member of Parliament Sitaram Yechury, has further recommended in its report on the bill that capital punishment must apply to those offenders “whose action results in the death of hostages/security men during the act of hijacking”.

Apparently, death for hijackers is in force in several other countries. For instance, in the US, an individual committing or attempting or conspiring to hijack an aircraft can be awarded the death penalty or imprisonment for life, if the commission of the crime or even the attempt results in the death of another individual. In China too hijackers may be awarded life imprisonment or the death penalty.

The death penalty clause for hijackers has been welcomed in several quarters. “This is definitely the need of the hour. Not only the hijackers but also those who help them commit the crime should be penalised with death,” says a spokesperson of the Federation of Indian Pilots, an association of more than 1,000 Indian pilots that liaises with regulatory bodies on aviation safety and welfare issues. “Of course, there are other measures like intelligence gathering that can prevent hijacking. But this bill speaks of a penal provision that will further strengthen the law against hijackers.”

But others doubt if the capital punishment clause will be effective. “The death penalty can serve as a deterrent to certain kinds of hijackers — irrational individuals who want to grab attention and extremists other than jihadists,” says Bahukutumbi Raman, former additional secretary, cabinet secretariat, Government of India. He cites the 1990 hijacking of a Thai plane headed to Calcutta by some Burmese students who demanded an end to military rule in Myanmar and several instances of hijackings by Khalistani extremists in the early 1980s in this regard. “However, if the hijackers are on a suicide mission, a death penalty would hardly matter to them,” says Raman.

The parliamentary standing committee has also noted in its report that “if the death penalty was a foregone conclusion for the offence of hijacking, the opportunities for any negotiation or settlement to save the lives of the passengers may be foreclosed”. It raises questions regarding the safety of passengers and crew on board in a situation where hijackers know for sure that they will get the death penalty for their crime.

Some point out that the bill focuses more on punitive measures than on preventive strategies. “But then, we cannot expect any legislation to take into account every kind of contingency,” says Raman. “We normally cross the bridge when we get to it. But it’s crucial to have an effective crisis management system. The Kandahar hijacking revealed a huge gap in the system insofar as crisis management was concerned.”

The aviation authorities maintain that adequate preventive measures are in place. For instance, apart from a dedicated Aviation Security Force (ASF) with a Quick Response Team (QRT), there are plans to handle any crisis situation by designated committees.

Among other things, the parliamentary standing committee has also suggested that the law cover hijacking of other modes of transport like trains and buses. Yechury says this is needed because there have been some instances of train hijacking in the past few months. For example, last year the Maoists stopped a train and held around 500 passengers hostage for more than four hours in the forests of Jharkhand reportedly to “punish” the railways for having run trains on what was a day-long bandh called by them.

What’s more, the committee report has also observed that the law should have a provision regarding compensation for hijack victims. It says getting compensation under civil laws is a time-consuming process, involving cumbersome litigation. Note, however, that compensation for hijack victims can be dealt with under such civil laws as the Carriage by Air Act.

But consumer activists feel that this won’t really solve the problem. “In compensation cases, particularly for hijacking victims, it’s very difficult to establish whose liability it is and who you are going to ask for compensation,” asks M.S. Kamath, honorary secretary of the Mumbai-based Consumer Guidance Society of India. “A plane can be hijacked even if there’s no security lapse on the part of the authorities or the airline. So will it be really fair if we put the onus solely on airlines?”

Good question.

Overall, though, the Anti-Hijacking Bill is being commended for its attempt to address some deficiencies in the existing law. One only hopes that the government will do its bit to help the bill sail through Parliament.