It was around 8:30 or 9 pm on the last day of 1999. I was in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and had gone to meet a Bihari friend of mine, Tabish Khair (now an established novelist and poet) to celebrate the New Year. While waiting for the others to get ready, I switched on the TV to get an update on IC 814, the hijacked Indian Airlines plane with 155 passengers on board eight days ago. The news was that the horrific saga was over and all the passengers had been released. But, of course, their freedom was secured in exchange for the release of three terrorists.
Two of the men released from jail were well-known in India – Maulana Masood Azhar (founder of the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed) and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar (Al Umar Mujahideen). But no one, except the police and intelligence agencies, had heard of the third man: Omar Saeed Sheikh. Just two years later, Sheikh became infamous worldwide for kidnapping and beheading an American journalist. He also precipitated a diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan after the 26 November terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.
Kidnapping of three Westerners
Netflix web series IC 814: Kandahar hijacking The incident has sparked controversy over the names and portrayals of some of the hijackers. But it reminded me of my own chance meeting with the Sheikh.
The year was 1994. My cameraman and I were out to cover a story for a Delhi-based TV channel; the channel was doing a dry run before the launch. We had barely reached Ghaziabad when we saw tight security outside a private hospital. The road was cordoned off. We were told that a terrorist injured in a police encounter in Saharanpur the previous night, in which a police inspector was shot dead, was admitted to the hospital.
Security was tightened inside the hospital. But some polite conversation took place with the friendly people from Uttar Pradesh.Mr inspector‘ did the trick. They let us in on the condition that we would tell them about our conversation with the man inside, Omar Sheikh, whose English accent, they admitted, they did not understand. We switched on the camera as soon as we entered the room, not knowing who Sheikh was and how big a target he was for the police. The only information we had was that the injured man had kidnapped three Britons and an American in Delhi and hidden them in a house in Saharanpur on his way to Kashmir. He had told his captives that his name was Rohit Sharma and that he was taking them to his native village in Kashmir. But when a Saharanpur police patrol party suddenly came upon the captives, a shootout ensued. A police inspector was killed and Sheikh was injured. All the captives were, however, released.
Omar Sheikh, London-born, LSE-educated terrorist
The hospital was luxurious, the Sheikh’s room was large and clean. He was lying on the bed with a bandage on his right shoulder. The camera was rolling and we were faced with a tall and bearded young man, lying propped up on hospital pillows and looking dazed and confused. His first reaction was to bombard us with questions, “Who are you, why are you here, who sent you?”
We asked him for an interview, but he refused to talk to us in protest as he said he had no prior information that we were going to interview him. He agreed when I showed him my press ID card. Before the interview began, he told us his name and that he was 20 years old. He was a student at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). He also said that he was born in London and grew up both there and in Lahore. His Pakistani immigrant parents lived in London, where they ran a clothing business.
During the half-hour interview Sheikh Omar looked extremely anxious. He told me he was willing to give anything to be returned to Britain. He also kept begging me, “Brother, get me out of here, please.” During the interview he told how at the age of 18 he had undertaken ‘jihad’ in Bosnia, fighting with and on behalf of Bosnian Muslims, who, he said, were being slaughtered by the Serbs. He was surprisingly young and his accent was clearly British. I thought he had a knack for talking. I was not surprised that he managed to lure foreign tourists and later, in 2002, used the same trick to take American journalist Daniel Pearl captive.
Fooled by extremists
He also explained how he was trained on campus by an Islamic organisation that wanted to establish an Islamic society in Britain. He said he was fooled by the unfortunate stories he heard about the plight of Muslims and Kashmiris in India.
Sheikh admitted that he was accused of kidnapping some foreign tourists in exchange for Maulana Masood Azhar, who was then jailed in India. He also admitted that he was in Delhi a month before the kidnapping and was shocked by the religious freedom he saw there. He said, “I was told that Muslims in India have no religious rights and Kashmiri Muslims are being tortured and raped by the Hindu army.”
I asked him if he was released, would he go back and tell people in Britain that Indian Muslims are free to build mosques, pray and work in government offices? He said he would. He was remorseful, but not so much that he regretted it.
Meeting with Masood Azhar
Why Omar Sheikh chose the path of destruction is hard to say. He was exposed to Islamic extremism at an early age. But this does not fully explain the kind of path he chose in his life. He was privileged. He went to the private Forest School in London – the same school where former cricketer Nasir Hussain studied. But where Sheikh became a terrorist, Hussain became the captain of the England cricket team.
At LSE, Sheikh was known for his academic brilliance, especially in mathematics and economics. But he dropped out before completing his degree and joined the ‘jihad’ in Bosnia. There he is said to have met some Pakistani “fighters” who introduced him to Maulana Masood Azhar on his return to Pakistan. He trained in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
After his release, it is unclear where Sheikh went in Pakistan. According to some Pakistani newspapers, he lived in Lahore, where he married a local woman and had a child.
By this time, Omar Sheikh was known to most Indian investigators and the intelligence community. His name surfaced when he was released from Tihar in December 1999, but he remained unknown outside India.
Kidnapping of Daniel Pearl
That all changed after the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know who the Sheikh was. A foreign media outlet published my interview with him, and I was flooded with requests from Western media to interview me.
Sheikh was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Pearl. He was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. According to a prominent Pakistani journalist who met the prison official where Sheikh was held, Omar was regularly shuttled between Karachi and Hyderabad prisons, where he would spend a fortnight at a time. The official told the journalist that this was necessary because he used his eloquence and often charmed prison officials, who would then do things for him, such as smuggle cellphones.
When Sheikh presented himself as Pranab Mukherjee
This is exactly the gift that once put the authorities in a fix and led to a diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan. A year after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Karachi’s Dawn newspaper ran an investigative story claiming that Sheikh had called then Pakistan President Asif Zardari claiming to be India’s then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee. It was reported that he used unparliamentary language on the call and threatened Zardari with dire consequences for the Mumbai attacks. The English daily claimed, “Detained Pakistani terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh made fake calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to escalate Pakistan-India tensions after last year’s terror attacks on Mumbai, investigators have told Dawn.”
A diplomatic crisis was averted after the calls were traced to his cell in Hyderabad jail. The cell was raided and it was found that Sheikh had used a British SIM card to make the threatening calls.
Despite Daniel Pearl’s wife, Mariane Pearl, writing a book called A Mighty Heart and a Hollywood movie of the same title, Omar Sheikh’s story remains shrouded in mystery. During dozens of court appearances, he often appeared affable and charming, but his terror ties have not been confirmed.
Omar Sheikh remains a mystery
Former dictator Pervez Musharraf described him as a British spy in his autobiography. Omar himself had revealed his deep links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in his candid comments to reporters during court hearings. He was known to have good relations with Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Some journalists who investigated the role of terror organisations in the 9/11 attacks claimed that he was an operative of al-Qaeda.
Omar has been kept in jail despite Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordering his release. It is believed that the country has kept him in jail even after re-arresting him due to international pressure. But some people also claim that it is better for him to remain in jail so that he does not reveal too much.
(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a senior London-based Indian journalist with three decades of experience in Western media)
Disclaimer: These are the personal views of the author
