Amritsar goof up led to 1999 Kandahar Crises says former RA&W chief A S Dault

The man who monitored the crisis arising from the 1999 hijack of IC-814, former RA&W chief A S Dulat, has admitted that the CMG had "goofed up" the operation. Speaking ahead of the launch of his book, 'Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years', Dulat said that the then Punjab police chief Sarabjit Singh, who was in charge of the situation when the plane was on the ground in Amritsar, said Delhi never told him that IC-814 was not to be allowed to take off. Singh did tell Delhi that he had at his disposal Punjab commandos trained in anti-terrorism operations who could storm the aircraft but Delhi's response was that it did not want any casualties.