Five Biman Crew one Official Suspended: Was There Sabotage Plan?
By M. Jahangir Alam May 23, 2004, 13:49
Mystery shrouds the motive of the five Indian citizens who were hauled out of the roof of Biman aircraft toilet during cleaning of the aircraft on Saturday when one of these arrestees confessed that two of them—a woman and a man—had left the aircraft along with other passengers after landing.
The Biman Bangladesh Airlines yesterday suspended six staff members including four cabin crew, the chief purser and another official.
State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mir Nasir Uddin told newsmen that the six officials were suspended on charge of negligence of their duty. The five arrested people were from a group of 76 Indian transit passengers who were scheduled to fly to Kolkata from Dhaka. The State Minister said that the chief purser had responsibility of ensuring disembarkation of all the transit passengers. How the arrested people hide themselves at the roof of the toilet despite the presence of the cabin crew ?.
The State Minister also said that other information about the episode are expected to be uncovered through interrogation of the arrested people by the joint interrogation cell. Police is now looking for Sikh woman and man with hope of solving the mystery. But some surmise that they must have crossed the border. However, Customs should be knowing about them as they checked through them. Police however, refused to dilate on the issue.
Accidental discovery of five Indian citizens at the roof of toilet of a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines is seen as a tip of iceberg of mysteries which, if unraveled properly, may lead to clues to recent spate of violence in the country.
Intelligence agencies are stated to be looking into all sides of the group’s unusual entry, movement and especially their concealment. They noted that as they moved into Bangladesh, series of killing and violence erupted. They boarded the aircraft just couple of hours before the Sylhet bomb blast.
Sources said that the intelligence agencies are also working on the lead that there might be foreign elements who stealthily entered the country to initiate violence with support from political or other forces.
The five Indian nationals identified as—Pargas Singh, Manjeet Singh, Mangas Singh and Sandip Singh aged between 25 and 30 were discovered and arrested on Saturday noon inside an aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines ( Flight No-BG-078) when it was taken to the engineering hanger at about 12.45 pm on Saturday for routine cleaning and maintenance at Zia International Airport (ZIA).
Sources said that the Indians were discovered from the aircraft, which was scheduled to fly for China today with the Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. Reasons behind their mysterious stay within the aircraft raised a number of questions.
According to the sources, the five Indians came to Dhaka from Kolkata by road last week. They had valid tickets for Hong Kong and passports. They availed the Biman flight for Hong Kong (the flight No-BG-078) at 11.30 am on Friday. That flight returned to Dhaka at 8:30 pm in the evening. It was to leave for London later in the night. But since the Prime Minister was to use it for her China flight, the aircraft was changed and this aircraft was taken to the hanger for cleaning and other checks which were done in the morning Then they were discovered by the cleaners at the hanger on the noon. Question is why they were detected that they did not disembark and how they returned to Dhaka from Hong Kong? Did they stay in the roof for all the time? Or did they have any link with any crew for all these trips? How did they know that the same aircraft would be used as VIP flight?
Their claim that that they wanted to hitch-hike to London appear hollow because visit to London is easier from India than Bangladesh. It is, therefore, surmised that they had inside information about the use of the aircraft and that was why they hid themselves in that aircraft. From this point of view, intelligence agencies feel very nervous that a big clique must be operating within the airlines and the civil aviation with classified news about use of air craft for the VIP.
Official sources remain tightlipped about the whole issue, especially if they were carrying any explosive or other device to blow up the aircraft or hijack it. During interrogation, the arrestees are learnt to have said that they were attempting to fly to London as they were informed that the same aircraft was scheduled to take off for London at 1.45 am on Friday. They also said that a gang had assured them to send them to London in exchange of a huge amount of money. But the investigators found big holes in their story?
The five Indians were handed over to Airport police station. A case was filed with the police station under Special Powers Act in this connection. They were produced before a magistrate, who allowed ten days remand for interrogation yesterday. Link to Article
Well now, what have we here? Thanks for the article.
Just on Fox.....here's the article
3:12pm (UK)
Al Qaida 'Has 18,000 Terrorists Waiting to Attack'
By Helen William, PA News
Al Qaida has more than 18,000 terrorists waiting for the order to attack targets in Europe and the US, preferably with weapons of mass destruction, a leading think-tank said today.
The war in Iraq has “focused the energies and resources of al Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counter-terrorism coalition”, the International Institute for Strategic Studies argued.
Despite the killing or capture of around 2,000 al Qaida fighters, including some key figures, the group remains a powerhouse for Islamic terrorists operating in more than 60 countries, the IISS annual Strategic Survey warned.
And western targets are firmly in the firing line.
“The Madrid bombings in March 2004 suggested that al Qaida had fully reconstituted, set its sights firmly on the US and its closest western allies in Europe, and established a new and effective modus operandi that increasingly exploited local affiliates,” IISS director John Chipman told a central London press conference.
“Al Qaida must be expected to keep trying to develop more promising plans for terrorist operations in North America and Europe, potentially involving weapons of mass destruction.
“Meanwhile, soft targets encompassing Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and aiding the insurgency in Iraq, will suffice.”
The IISS’s 18,000 figure is based on intelligence estimates that al Qaida trained at least 20,000 fighters in its camps in Afghanistan before the United States and its allies ousted the Taliban regime.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2974796
funded by George Soros no doubt....I was reading that article of him in NewsMax...he seems to have funded quite a number of regime changes.