ABSTRACT
Militancy continued as the world entered the year 2000. On Christmas Eve, foreign militants struck the Jammu-Pathankot National Highway and gunned down three policemen near Vijaypur.25 Four security men were killed and 13 others injured two days later.26 In between the two events, an army camp became the target of rockets.27 More dramatically, an Indian Airlines plane with 186 passangers was hijacked by a group of five extremists. Although Osama Bin Laden had reportedly left Kandahar shortly after the hijacked plane landed in a southern Afghan city,28 he denied links to the event. The hijackers slipped undetected through remote mountain passes29 after three hardcore militants were released in exchange for the hostages aboard the airbus.30 While the Bharatiya lanata Party (BIP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in New Delhi geared up for the political repercussions of such release, described by some analysts as a dangerous decision, senior police officers in Kashmir warned of a spate of enhanced terrorist activity following that moveY Although a local president of the ruling National Conference was shot at near Charar-e Sharif, and a policeman killed in Doda the same day, 11 militants were killed and 17 others surrendered during the same period.32 Significantly, while the release of militants would have echoed with chants of "azadi" ten years ago, the same streets witnessed absolute silence nowY When a group of militant leaders were released in 1994, they were accorded a tumultuous reception. Prominent Kashmiri militant groups such as the Hizb-ul Mujahideen hastily denounced the hijacking in an effort to rule out any possibility of involvement in the act.
