The Supreme Court on Friday granted leave and admitted an appeal filed by Abdul Momin, one of the convicts in the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 hijack case of 1999. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had awarded life imprisonment to Momin, who had then challenged it in the apex court. The appeal was against life imprisonment.
The Indian Airlines flight was hijacked by five terrorists in December 1999, while on its way to Delhi from Kathmandu with over 180 people on board the plane. The aircraft was flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan from where the hijackers negotiated the release of terrorists fighting in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Indian government at the time released three Kashmiri terrorists in exchange for the 180 passengers on board the flight.
In September 2012, the police had said that they had arrested a top terrorist involved in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft in Kashmir.
